VIDEO: Details of SeaWorld Whale Attack

Whale Kills Trainer at Sea World!

A SeaWorld employee died this afternoon during an incident at SeaWorld’s Shamu Stadium.

SeaWorld, rescue personnel and the Sheriff’s Office are not revealing the identity of the victim, although a local TV station is reporting that it was a female employee who was killed after she was grabbed by one of the theme park’s whales at the start of a public show.

Park guest Victoria Biniak said that the trainer was a veteran of SeaWorld and had just finished explaining to the audience what they would see during the performance when the whale came up from the water and grabbed the woman and started thrashing her around.

She said sirens went off and everyone was forced to leave the stadium. Guests were evacuated from the area, and the whale show was cancelled. The park is not shut down.

Orange County Fire Rescue personnel arrived on scene within five minutes of receiving a 911 call for an unknown medical condition just prior to 2 p.m. The woman was dead when rescue officials arrived.

The whale involved in the incident is named Tillikum, and apparently “Tilly” has a controversial past…

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Best Job On The World?

Ben Southall, who won ‘the best job in the world’, had a brush with death after being stung by a poisonous jellyfish.

Southall, 34, beat out nearly 35,000 applicants from around the world earlier this year to be awarded the $100k six-month job as ‘caretaker’ of a string of islands on the famous Great Barrier Reef.

After enjoying a post-Christmas jet ski session with some friends he climbed off the back of the ski and onto the beach and felt a small bee-like sting on his forearm. What he didn’t realize at the time was that he had been stung by an Irukandji jellyfish, which is no bigger than a fingernail but can be deadly.

Luckily, Ben says he’s now feeling 100 per cent again.

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Monk Seal Attacks Swimmer Off Kauai!

Authorities say a monk seal attacked a swimmer off Kauai Monday afternoon. The 28-year-old woman from Washington state was snorkeling at Mahaulepu Beach when she drifted into an area where several monk seals were swimming.

A full-grown female seal who was with her pup apparently felt threatened by the snorkeler and attacked. The woman was bitten on her face, head, hand and elbow. She made it back to shore and was later taken to Wilcox Memorial Hospital.

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South Africa Surfer Attacked by “Something”

Durban Surfer Lance Morris was attacked by either a small shark or some other form of predator fish like a Barracuda or Morey eel at North Beach on Friday. Whatever it was, he needed 10 stitches to repair the damage. By the size of the bite marks on his leg, the doctor who stitched him up estimated the attacker to be about 4 – 5ft in length. See more pics here!

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[photo: Karl Liebenberg]

Man Bitten By Barracuda!

A man has been bitten by a barracuda while spearfishing in north Queensland, Australia.

The 40-year-old was swimming in waters off Bowen early on Saturday morning when he was bitten on the leg by the fish.

He was taken to the hospital for treatment for a serious bite.

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77-year-old Golfer Loses Arm In Gator Attack!

A 77-year-old man lost his arm below the elbow on Thursday when he was attacked by an alligator while playing golf on Fripp Island in South Carolina.

The man, who was playing the 11th hole of the island’s Ocean Creek Golf Course, leaned down to pick up his ball when a 10-foot gator grabbed his arm and then dragged him into a nearby pond. The gator then went into a series of “death rolls,” a technique it uses to tear apart its food. That was when the man lost his arm.

The man’s golf buddies were able to free him from the alligator’s grasp and called 911.

Workers killed the gator and performed a necropsy on it to remove the man’s arm from the animal’s digestive track.

The arm was stored in a cooler in the hopes of re-attaching it. The man’s condition was still unknown late Thursday night.

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Lamprey Attacks In The Baltic Sea!

Two swimmers in the Baltic Sea sought medical treatment over the weekend after being bitten by sea lampreys, an uncomfortable incident that has the state fisheries department aflutter about the return of the parasitic marine animal.

The two people were bitten near the town of Damp, 31 miles north of Kiel on the east coast of Schleswig-Holstein. A lamprey had to be removed after it attached itself to the leg of a 14-year-old boy. The other lamprey victim told German tabloid Bild that he was swimming and bitten by “a metre-long snake-like creature.”

Martin Franz, manager of the Schleswig-Holstein fisheries department said the culprit was most likely a sea lamprey, which can grow to be as long as 2.5 ft, trying to catch a ride.

“They aren’t very good swimmers so they latch on to a passing fish – or in this case a person – to get around,” said Franz.

The sea lamprey had been considered to be increasingly rare in the southern Baltic Sea. Franz sees the two incidents as a positive sign for the population.

“Not so long ago, the lamprey was a delicacy here and they were completely overfished. This is actually a good sign and means the population is improving.”

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Ferocious Otter Attacks Triathlon Swimmer!

Triathletes Sanford and Mary-Jane Schmid put on their wetsuits on August 22 and set off to swim a 1,500m lap around Lake Lillian in Invermere, British Colombia when Sanford felt something pulling on his foot. Schmid figured he’d just swum into a log, and resumed swimming.

Then he felt it again. Turns out he was being attacked by an otter. Sanford sought refuge on a nearby wooden dock as the otter continued to attack him. Finally, after fighting the beast all the way to the safety of the dock, he reached shallow water.

Schmid was able to pull his war-torn body up on the dock while the otter swam underneath. Once out of the water, he saw the chewed-up legs of his wetsuit and blood gushing from his foot. His wife took him to the hospital where Schmid was given oral and intravenous antibiotics, and a hearty tetanus shot and sent home on crutches.

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Teen Stabbed By Stingray At Florida Beach

A teenager is recovering after receiving a puncture wound from a stingray at Panama City Beach, FL yesterday.

The victim, a 17-year-old North Carolina teen, was stabbed in the torso (yeouch) while he was swimming just 30 feet off shore.

He was rushed to the hospital but the puncture wound does not appear to be life threatening.

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