ORLANDO, Fla. — A New Hampshire family is sharing the final moments before a trainer was killed by a whale at Orlando’s SeaWorld.
Todd Connell captured seven minutes of footage as trainer Dawn Brancheau was interacting Wednesday with the killer whale named Tilikum in knee-deep water. He shut off the camera just seconds before the whale grabbed Brancheau by her long pony tail and pulled her underwater.
An autopsy later determined that the 40-year-old whale trainer died from multiple traumatic injuries and drowning.
“I saw her hair in his mouth, and he rolled and she went over the top of him and went right up underneath and then he just took her down,” Connell told Orlando television station WESH.
The tourist said he was thankful for turning off the camera just before the attack.
“Thank God I turned my camera off because I would not want to have shot any of what we witnessed,” he said.
His wife, Suzanne Connell, said witnessing the attack was traumatic for the family, especially their 10-year-old son.
“He was hysterical. We were outside the fence looking in, and he was just hysterical,” she said.
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