You’re full of crap. The father has wounds on his hands from wrestling the gator, trying to rescue his son. Let’s not get bogged down in rampant speculation, shall we? This was a tragedy all the way around.
To me, “No Swimming” doesn’t mean “No Wading” or “No Dipping Our Toes in the Water.” It means no full on immersion in the water. I think Disney, as big and creative as they are, can come up with some way to warn visitors away from the water without scaring them. “Enjoy the Florida wildlife at a distance,” for instance.
That, or put some sort of barrier so the gators can’t get from the canals to the man made lake.
If I were traveling to Florida, knowing they have alligators, I’d expect to see a “Caution: Alligators” sign. If I just saw a “no swimming” sign I’d assume it wasn’t designed for swimming, no lifeguard, or maybe the water isn’t very clean. If the policy is “never trust even a puddle” they really should make that better known.
If they’re afraid alligator warnings are going to scare tourists away (is that likely?) and they put in a lake, they should hire someone to make damn sure there are no alligators. If you can’t be sure and you know people will want to get their feet wet, then put a decorative fence around it, at least. Never expect tourists to know what natives know. That’s stupid.
Yeah, I have to admit I might not think twice about a No Swimming sign myself or even ask about it. I think I would be one of the ones who thought alligators could not possibly pose a threat at a Disney establishment. Would assume wading would be okay. But that was before. Now if I ever go to Florida, I’m certainly not going to take any body of water for granted. Sure, I’ve known about Florida and gators but always equated them with the boonies, the Everglades and such.
If it is possible that alligators are in a body of water accessible to the public, you need to scare them, or at least inform them of the dangers beyond a “No Swimming” sign, which, in this case, is ridiculously ambiguous. What kind of warning sign do you think will be in place at this lake now?
Agreed as to all. That is why I believe that Disney will be found liable because it breached the duty of due care to its business invitees, and it was reasonably foreseeable that young children and families would get near the water. I am familiar with the doctrine that a property owner is not responsible for wild animal attacks, but Disney built a habitat for these things on the property.
If I am staying in a resort hotel for $400/night and a man made lagoon on the resort, I don’t expect alligators in the lagoon anymore than I expect them in the swimming pool.
I don’t care if it is Florida. Steel grates can be installed in the conduits to the canals, and for $400/night, I would expect daily monitoring to keep the gators out. Further, when the resort admits that it has “re-homed” these alligators but they keep coming back, then they need to do more than post a No Swimming sign. It reminds me of Groundskeeper Willie posting the “Caution: Well” sign after Bart fell down the well.
The common law duty is that a property owner must warn against hidden dangers, traps, snares, pitfalls, and the like. You can’t get away with not warning because it detracts from the “Disney Magic”
Don’t bother watching he video - it is just law enforcement basically saying, “we’re looking for the kid’s body.”
Reading the article it says, among other things:
In Florida, a property owner owes two duties to an invitee: (1) the duty to use reasonable care in maintaining the property in a reasonably safe condition, and; (2) the duty to warn of latent or concealed dangers which (a) should be known to the owner and (b) are unknown to the invitee and (c) cannot be discovered through the exercise of due care.
for example, suppose a resort had a known infestation of fire ants, and failed to call pest control. Suppose also that patrons checking in and out of the hotel were not warned and had no reason to know that the hotel is in fire ant territory.
courts in Florida have held that a swimmer’s disregard of “No Swimming” and other warning signs were the sole cause of the serious injuries.
I’m not now, nor have I ever been saying that this isn’t tragic. Nor am I saying that if I were placed in the same situation I would be all like, “Ugh, I fucked up… well kids are easy to come by.”
What I am saying is that if I am taking my kids someplace I’m unfamiliar with I’m going to check into the dangers posed by where we are going. Failure to do that is irresponsible. Due diligence and all of that.
A simple google search would have pointed out the threat of alligators if you are going to Florida.
Asking the staff, “Why no swimming in your purpose built non-natural lake” would have elicited a response (bullshit or not) that amounted to “The water is not safe to be in.”
The parents chose to rules lawyer and let their kid into the water despite the “no swimming” sign and they got burned in a way I wouldn’t wish on MuldoonThief but they made the choice.
If I see a “no swimming” sign I don’t let my kids in the water despite our lack of alligators - here it is swimmer’s itch, currents or pollution that cause the signs. I don’t expect a tourist to know the specific dangers but I expect them to know that “No swimming” means stay the fuck out the water.
The parents chose to ignore a pretty clear warning and skirt the rules and their child paid for it.
To me the parents don’t matter. To me it is the idea of what that kid’s last couple of minutes must have been like and the fact that the kid was robbed of 70 or so years of life that matters.
There are some fair questions that have to be asked here.
I don’t have a problem with euthanizing either animal-----the gorilla could have killed the boy, even by mistake; theres no question alligators are apex predators who can be aggressive, and as many as needed had to be destroyed to recover the kids remains.
But I do have to question parenting here as well. Its its fair and well to criticize a black woman who looked away for a second and let her brat three year old get away into a gorilla enclosure, then what is with all the justification for WHITE parents allowing a 2 year old to wade in up to 24" in water in a “no swimming area”?
Seems to me the black kid is better off unwatched than a pair of white parents keeping an eye on theirs.
Again, I see a BIG difference in the cases. Wasn’t the Orlando kid under the supervision of his mother? The gator simply appeared out of nowhere, with no time to react.
Terrible idea if you believe Christina Grimmie, the 49 in the nightclub, and the two year old boy who was killed by an alligator were all being punished for any sin, real or imaginary. What a ludicrous notion.
I don’t really think it’s fair and well to criticize either. When random horrible accidents happen, we have a tendency to assign blame where none exists, because it makes us feel better about the odds of such things happening to us.
If this sort of thing were a regular occurrence at either venue, it’d be a whole different ballgame. But nobody goes to the zoo realistically expecting their kid can get into a gorilla pit, and nobody goes to Disney World realistically expecting their kid to get eaten by an alligator.
Both the zoo and Disney would do well to take action to mitigate against such things happening in the future, and parents would do well to be a little extra careful with their kids in unfamiliar areas, but the idea that the gavel of judgment should be falling on anybody in any meaningful way just seems like a lot of people eager to put as much psychological distance between themselves and the victims as they possibly can.
My post was in jest. I wasn’t actually suggesting Orlando, or the individual people, were being punished for their sins, if any. With three such tragic events occurring in the same city within a week, it just seems like someone is punishing its inhabitants. Again, my post was in jest.
[QUOTE=Siam Sam]
So god hates, um, singers, gay nightclubbers and little boys.
[/QUOTE]
Not necessarily. If you believe the Bible, God destroyed the entire city, not just those he perceived had sinned.
