ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — The sister of a SeaWorld trainer killed by a whale says the woman loved the whales like children and wouldn’t want anything to happen to the one that pulled her into the water.
Trainer Dawn Brancheau was rubbing the whale named Tilikum after a noontime show Wednesday when the whale grabbed her and pulled her in, killing her. The park said it hasn’t decided yet what to do with the whale.
But Brancheau’s sister Diane Gross, of Indiana, says the trainer “would not want anything done to that whale.”
Gross tells the Associated Press that news of her sister’s death “hasn’t sunk in yet.”
A SeaWorld official said that because of Tilikum’s size and involvement in two previous deaths, trainers were not supposed to get into the water with him.
Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press
Advertisement
