Killer Whale at SeaWorld Lives Up to Its Name, Kills Female Trainer

According to local reports, a female trainer was killed by a killer whale at SeaWorld's Shamu stadium on Wednesday in Orlando, Florida. Speaking with local news station WKMG, a witness described how the veteran trainer had just finished telling the audience about the show that they were going to witness when the whale began to attack.

Witness Victoria Biniak described the attack to local media:

"The trainer was explaining different things about the whale..and then the trainer that was down there walked away from the window..and then Telly (the whale) took off really fast in the tank and he came back, shot up in the air, grabbed the trainer by the waist and started thrashing (her) around,"

The attack was apparently so violent that the trainer's shoe flew off as she was being thrashed around.

According to the Orlando Sentinel, Orange County Fire & Rescue responded at 2pm ET to a report of a person who was not breathing.

The whale, named Tilikum, or Telly for short, is nearly 30-years-old, weighs 12,300 pounds and is a bull Orca.

Unfortunately, this is not the first fatal incident in which Tilikum has been involved. On February 21, 1991 the whale was involved in an incident which resulted in the death of a 20-year-old female trainer, Keltie Byrene. At the time, Telly was residing at a location in British Columbia, Canada. Tilikum was moved to Orlando in 1992. In 1999, a man who had snuck into the park after hours was found dead in Tilikum's tank.