SeaWorld Attack: Eyewitness Accounts

Eyewitnesses are remembering what happened during last week’s killer-whale attack at Orlando’s SeaWorld on trainer Dawn Brancheau, who had worked with Orcas for 16 years.

Statements were released Monday by the sheriff’s office in Orange County, Florida about the attack that happened – describing the incident as extremely fast and requiring a very long recovery effort.

"She was laying down on our concrete walk area face-to-face performing a relationship session with the whale," one employee said. "He bit down on a piece of her hair. Within a span of two seconds, she was pulled into the pool unable to get her hair released from his mouth."

An alarm was sounded and Tilikum the whale quickly became agitated, repeatedly surfacing and diving with Brancheau’s body in his mouth, not letting go.

Witness Susanne De Wit saw the attack from a window in the underwater tank. "Suddenly I saw [the whale] grabbing the trainer ... and pulling her down in the water," she said. "It was scary. He was very wild, with the trainer still in the whale's mouth, the whale's tail was very wild in the water."

Many rescuers quickly attended the scene but could not deploy the nets easily to isolate the whale. One trainer said, "it took approximately 25 to 30 minutes to get Dawn's body away," and added, "I could see that he had her in his mouth either by her hair or arm and she did not look conscious any time I could see her."

Once the whale was out of water, Brancheau could still not be freed until later when the whale’s jaws were forced open.

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