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[steve2470]

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[NightWatcher]

1. Because a warning sign wasn't explicit enough?

Or is there more to this?

[NightWatcher]

7. WDW has been opened since 1971 and gator attacks are rare

Last edited Fri Jun 17, 2016, 01:51 PM - Edit history (1)

Why can't things just be a tragedy anymore?

Sure the family should sue and take a huge settlement, but I doubt there's anything devious about their lack of explicit warning signs.

There are tons of injuries and more than 100 lawsuits a year, but knowing the size of Disney World I think they run a rather safe operation.

On edit: I'm so sorry, I was not aware of the bite a child sustained in 1986.

[NightWatcher]

14. How about they got unlucky and after 45 years had a gator fatality?

I'm sorry for saying anything, I guess the trademarked DU Window for Kneejerk Reactions hadn't passed yet.

[LanternWaste]

42. In a fit of pique, I also pretend different opinions are simply knee-jerk reactions

In a fit of pique, I also pretend different opinions are simply knee-jerk reactions. Prevents us from having to thing rationally, and we get the added bonus of the pretense of oppression.

[Bluenorthwest]

23. It's not their first gator attack on a child, first fatality. Not the first attack.

Also the location this attack happened at did not open until the late 90's and has recently seen the addition of luxury suites built over the water from which guests have been feeding the gators in the same body of water that lacked warning signs at beaches which seem to be for swimming at a hotel that aggressively seeks families with children as guests.

[yourpaljoey]

35. Did not know it was not the first attack. That does change everything.

[TeamPooka]

46. 1. This is not the first gator attack at WDW. see link below. 2. WDW has a Wildlife Control Team

that deals with this gator issue every day across all thier parks in Orlando.
It is part of their daily ops.
They know it's a problem but did not let their guests know it's a problem.
So now the question legally will be: Did WDW do a good enough job to protect guests from this known problem?
On the face of it the answer seems to be no. Because the boy is dead.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/disney-gator-attack-brings-back-horrifying-memories-hampshire/story?id=39904166

[csziggy]

47. No it is NOT the first attack

30 years ago another boy was attacked by an alligator at Disney. Here is his story.
By Brady Dennis June 16 at 2:59 PM

<SNIP>

But it turns out that in 1986, an 8-year-old boy visiting from New Hampshire suffered serious injuries when he was attacked by a gator at Disney World’s Fort Wilderness, a themed camping resort not far from the Grand Floridian Resort & Spa where Tuesday’s attack occurred. He had been playing nearby when he wandered away to watch ducks at a nearby pond. The gator exploded from the water and grabbed his left leg.

The boy, Paul Santamaria, was fortunate to survive the attack. He is now a grown man living in New Hampshire.

In the video above, he recounted to Boston station WFXT this week how the scars from it remain — some physical, some mental. Santamaria told the station that he was hospitalized for a week with lacerations on his leg. Doctors even removed an alligator tooth from inside his thigh.

Santamaria said that the attack haunted him for years and that for a long time, he didn’t like to sleep alone or go near water. He said the wrenching death this week of 2-year-old Lane Graves brought back memories of his own harrowing experience.

More: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/animalia/wp/2016/06/16/30-years-ago-another-boy-was-attacked-by-an-alligator-at-disney-here-is-his-story/

I would not be surprised to find out there were more attacks that non-disclosure agreements have kept from the public.

One of the reasons the taking of the young boy got so much attention was that media were staying at the resort to cover the Pulse massacre, One of the reporters was coming back to the hotel and saw the crowd on the beach and the gear up for the search. If there had not been media on hand, do you think Disney would have told the news about this case?

[yeoman6987]

15. Signs are cheap and they had one saying no swimming

I don't think it was on purpose but negligence for sure. The insurance will pay 25 million out of court.

[KittyWampus]

3. Disney's resort/grounds are entirely artificial. Which means it all exists by design.

Disney created/designed an attractive nuisance and failed to put a "fence" around it.

And there was no sign warning "Alligators Present/Stay 10' Away From Water's Edge"

And even if there were signs saying that, children and foreign visitors might not be able to read them.

[NightWatcher]

10. Disney's Orlando area is built in swamp land, how do you think he was able to buy it all up?

Gators are in the swamp. Every fence in the world couldn't prevent a gator from getting into their massive operation.

[KittyWampus]

17. Thus, Disney failed to design public safety measures into their property.

[OriginalGeek]

21. no, but a fence on that beach

could've made it much harder for a gator in the water to get to a kid on the shore.

Sure, a gator could get around the fence eventually but folks would have seen that way in advance.

[Baclava]

25. Better be a big fence...

[video=youtube;7Qp_bUYPrTg]

[/video]

[TexasMommaWithAHat]

30. Just another backyard lizard

climbing that fence.

[OriginalGeek]

32. the beach area is small so it wouldn't need to be very long

but something out in the water between the deep and the shore would almost certainly have given people time to react on the beach if a gator started climbing it.

This gator had unhindered access to a child basically playing in an area Disney designed to be played in. Gators slide up undetected underwater with just their eyes above it and in the dusk/dark of evening time they are hard to see. If that gator had had a fence to bump into, he would have gone elsewhere for food.

I'm sure the Imagineers could design something both functional and Disney-fied.

[Baclava]

44. Yeah, one little beach shouldn't be too hard to zone off, but all of Disney is an "improved" swamp

The whole hotel area is huge

[liberal N proud]

49. This has just turned into an opportunity to attack a corporation

Be it WalMart, Disney or any other corporation, some DUers just love to bash them. And damn you for not joining the outrage.

Parents need not take responsibility since they are staying at a corporate property, it is the responsibility of the corporation to take responsibility for all their actions.

rant off

[hollysmom]

36. We are talking about an unlit no swimming sign on a man made beach that Disney

Was holding a family movie night on. First if that were mud, people would not be in it (normally). Light the sign up if you want people to see and don't say swimming when you mean keep out. No common sense used by disney. Being lucky in the past is no excuse.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

5. Yeah they were probably making billions off that beach

Maybe kajillions.

Save the "Follow the money! Profits over People!" hyperbole. Sometimes negligence is just negligence.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

12. And they'll pay out the ass for it

Whatever money they were making off renting shitty beach chairs is all gonna be gone soon along with bad publicity. Doesn't seem like the smart business model of evil incarnate.

[yeoman6987]

16. 2 grand a night to stay at that location

[A HERETIC I AM]

29. Depends on the room.

https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/resorts/grand-floridian-resort-and-spa/rates-rooms/

[yeoman6987]

56. You are right. Thank you

[OriginalGeek]

9. I don't think they sat around and thought

"eh, we can afford an eaten kid every now and again"

I think they thought they had the gators under control.

They were devastatingly wrong and I hope it does cost them plenty but I just can't think they figured it was an acceptable cost else I'd throw up.

[Fumesucker]

37. That caculation has been explicitly made before by Ford and they got caught

[csziggy]

51. Sure, "they had the gators under control."

The ineffectual way the park attendant is splashing in front of the gator excited it more than deterred it. That video was six years ago. The next one is from last year:

This one from 2012 shows why the gator hangs around:

Disney did not discourage guests from feeding the gators - which is illegal in Florida and which creates dangerous situations. When employees tried to warn management about the dangers of this practice, they were ignored. When other guests reported gators being unafraid of humans - on the same beach where the child was taken - they were ignored.

Whether or not Disney factored in the costs of doing nothing, they made decisions that ignored the dangers. It's the same thing as deliberately choosing to hold children's lives cheaper than continuing the status quo.

Disney had an incident where a boy was attacked thirty years ago and did not create safer conditions. They ignored the dangers and now a child is dead.

[Throd]

13. In Florida, one should assume any body of water has alligators in it.

I actually AM a Disney hater, but sometimes tragedies just happen.

[KittyWampus]

18. Then there be signs in all languages warning guests of that threat?

And that beach and other bodies of water should have safety features built into/around them.

[Takket]

20. the signs will probably have several languages but

it is large images they mostly need. a big alligator, and a picture of a person in the water with a big red line through it. also need to design some fencing or just get rid of the beaches and put in landscaping.

[Throd]

22. I think a sign with a pictograph of an alligator in public areas would suffice.

I'm reminded of the sign at Stinson Beach, CA with a giant great white shark on it. No confusion there.

[trotsky]

31. Visitors to Florida are not always aware of that maxim.

And at a destination intended to attract out-of-state visitors, well...

[Takket]

19. This is such a silly argument

Every company/profession has some sort of risk in doing business and that risk includes people dying. We as a people/society can't just never build anything or go anywhere or come out of our closets because someone might die. NASA knows astronauts might die. Should we never go into space? Should we get rid of schools because someone might go and shoot them up? How many kids have been killed by farm equipment? Should we stop growing food to eat?

Disney World have been there since 1971. That's 45 years, and this is the first time this has happened (an alligator attack, many people have died at Disney over the years for a wide variety of reasons), in contrast to the enjoyment and memoires Disney has provided literally MILLIONS of families in that time.

Yeah, when they built Disney World, I'm sure there was some conference with Walt and the engineers and they all said "you know, with all the people that come here, there is no way to avoid someone dying once in a while." and yeah, they accepted the fact that someday someone was going to die, and they built it all anyway, and that is neither immoral nor unreasonable. As long as you are obeying safety laws you aren't doing anything wrong.

They should have had better signs, and they will. The family is going to sue and win (most likely settle), as they should. People are still going to go to Disney World and enjoy themselves, as they should.

[cbdo2007]

24. Good luck...this person is just trying to be disruptive, as he posted a similar OP yesterday

and ignored all of the rational responses.

[Bluenorthwest]

28. Not the first gator attack.

nt

[GummyBearz]

34. I used to live by disney land in southern california

Many of my college friends got part time jobs there. The stories they told about Disney putting money ahead of safety were cringe worthy. The worst was when some kid did something stupid and got the top part of a finger cut off. They made his parents sign a waiver before they would call an ambulance.

[COLGATE4]

52. Thank you for the lucid, intelligent response. We need more of

that type response, much less of "fuck the corporations" that is so prevalent now.

[ronnie624]

26. A good example of this, is the McDonalds hot coffee lawsuit.

Their risk/cost analyses were revealed and admitted to in court. Thousands of people were severely scalded by their 175 degree coffee in weak cups. In the end, the lawsuits were cheaper than the wasted coffee and better cups. Coffee tends to taste better for a longer period of time, at higher temps.

There is no doubt that big companies run these analyses.

[GummyBearz]

43. Yea, I believe that inspired the scene in fight club...

Tyler/Narrator: A new car built by my company leaves somewhere traveling at 60 mph. The rear differential locks up. The car crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside. Now, should we initiate a recall? Take the number of vehicles in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.

Business woman on plane: Are there a lot of these kinds of accidents?

Tyler/Narrator: You wouldn't believe.

Business woman on plane: Which car company do you work for?

Tyler/Narrator: A major one.

[Adrahil]

33. EVERY company MUST "bake" risk into their business model.

For example, in aircraft, the standard is "seven nines." That is, we expect a safety-critical failure 1 in 10,000,000 times. Sometimes we stop there because that's the best we can do. Sometimes we stop there because the cost to go further would be very high. And in many case, it's impossible... I mean literally IMPOSSIBLE to make things completely safe.

The question is, did they take reasonable precautions? Some rumors popping out today suggest there may been some problems there. But rumors are not facts (at least, not yet).

[hollysmom]

39. Adding a sand beach just attracts families to the water. That is

What they call an attractive nuisance. If they just left it mud and weeds, people would be more cautious

[Fumesucker]

41. Does "No Swimming" mean "Do Not Even Get Close To The Water"?

Because just being close to the water is a risk in gator country...

[Adrahil]

45. I agree that they should add signs.

And they announced today they will. But tens of thousands visit those "beaches" every year. It's not like people have died there year after year. Some see any failure as evidence of negligence. I don't.

[forgotmylogin]

38. Honestly, with the number of people through Disney every year

They cannot preconceive and prevent every single death that happens. Statistics wise, there will be accidents every day, and by the numbers, some will be fatal. This happened to be a tremendously tragic and gruesome one, but it could have happened *anywhere* in Florida, not to mention places that don't have any signs.

There was no Imagineer going "Bwar har har, we're gonna irresponsibly save SO much money on paint not mentioning alligators on these signs..."

They said "no swimming". That's reasonable and defensible, but Disney I'm sure is going to compensate this family.

I would bet money that nowhere in Disney's boardrooms was there ever a conversation that went "No, it costs too much money to protect children from alligator attacks on property."

[forgotmylogin]

50. Where have you seen a Ford Pinto recently?

I concede that there have been issues of this with the tire debacle as well as the ignition recall debacle.

But I again state that never would Disney specifically say "We can outsail an occasional toddler eaten by gator death."

If you look at the number of fatal alligator attacks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatal_alligator_attacks_in_the_United_States you will note that most deaths are from people "swimming" in the water. They had a sign that said "no swimming". The only deaths where someone is taken by a gator out of the water or in shallow water is when it's a tiny child.

People will play semantics that "this child was only wading" but wading to a 2 year old is submersing most of their body, and they are the size of gators' normal prey.

This child could have drowned in six inches of water without a gator being involved. I'm not blaming the parents, but I don't think you can say Disney willfully and neglectfully didn't care that this kind of thing could happen at their resort.

[liberal N proud]

48. I guess parents don't need to be responsible for thei children

Make the corporations responsible for the negligence of parents.

[COLGATE4]

53. What did the parents do that you believe was negligent?

[greytdemocrat]

54. I live in FL

And if there is a body of fresh water you have to assume
there are gators. These people were out of state visitors
and a No Swimming sign is just not enough.

Disney is going to pay and pay dearly for this mistake
and I for one have no sympathy for them. This was
avoidable.

I'm not a "Sue em" person but in this case, sic em.

[CBGLuthier]

57. meh

Shit happens. Florida is full of gators.