Days after a toddler was killed by an alligator at Disney World in Orlando, Florida, video has surfaced in which a park employee is seen fending off a gator years earlier near the popular attraction Splash Mountain.
In the video, uploaded in 2009, logs carrying riders are seen floating past an employee who is poking at an alligator with a pole. The creature is determined to reach land.
Last Tuesday night, a gator attacked and killed 2-year-old Lane Graves while he was wading in shallow water at the edge of the Seven Seas Lagoon at Disney’s Grand Floridian resort. The company has been criticized since the attack for not having posted signage warning of alligators despite their well-known presence in the waters in and surrounding the park.
Graves’ body was recovered intact by a dive team on Wednesday near the location where the attack occurred. Nick Wiley, executive director of Florida Fish and Wildlife, said they would “make certain that we have the alligator that was involved and remove it from the lake.”
On Friday, Disney released an image of the signs it has installed at its resorts to warn guests of the threat of alligators in park waters.