DARWIN AWARD: KILLER WHALE RODEO
1999 Darwin Award Winner
Confirmed by Darwin
6 JULY 1999, FLORIDA
A naked man was found dead on the back of a killer whale at SeaWorld in Orlando, a victim of drowning or hypothermia in the fifty-five-degree water. “There were no obvious signs of trauma. He wasn’t chewed or dismembered,†the sheriff’s office said. The body had scrapes on it, possibly signifying that the victim had been dragged along the bottom of the tank.
Is a man who swims with Orcas worthy of a Darwin Award? Clues from his bizarre history may help us decide.
He was identified as a marijuana-smoking drifter named Daniel.
Hare Krishna priest Paul Seaur shared insights into Daniel’s personality, gleaned during his month with the community of six worshipers. He had a great love of nature, writing in his journal and feeding wild birds in the temple garden. However, Daniel had difficulty adjusting to the religion’s 4:00 A.M. wake-up time, dietary prohibitions, and abstinence from liquor, drugs, sex, and gambling. He preferred to dodge work and meditate in the chapel listening to heavy metal music.
Daniel unexpectedly announced that he was taking a vow of silence, which puzzled the Hare Krishnas since their religion does not urge its members to be silent. He left abruptly in the spring, breaking his vow long enough to say, “I want to be free. I want to travel around.â€Â
During his travels Daniel left a string of petty offenses throughout South Carolina, Washington, Texas, and Florida. Just days before his death, he had completed a three-day sentence in the Indian River County Jail for stealing a 3Musketeers candy bar from 7-Eleven. He resumed his vow of silence in court. “The suspect could not speak,†a Vero Beach officer reported, “so instead he used paper and pen to deny the charge.â€Â
Three days after his release, our intrepid stoner gained admittance to SeaWorld and loitered near the whale pools until the 10:00 P.M. closing, evading the twenty-four-hour security. After stripping to his bathing trunks, he scaled a three-foot Plexiglas barrier, crossed a short stone wall, and climbed into Tillikum’s frigid enclosure using the steps ringing the eighty-by-one-hundred-foot pool.
An employee spotted Daniel’s nude form draped just below Tillikum’s dorsal fin at 7:35 A.M. the next morning. His swimming shorts were found elsewhere in the tank. Tillikum apparently tried to remove the shorts with his razor-sharp teeth, the medical examiner said.
The nature lover left few clues about his state of mind when he decided to commune with a carnivore the size of a bus. A joint was nestled inside his pile of clothes, but no admission ticket to SeaWorld could be found. Anonymous park workers made a surprise announcement that this was not the first time Daniel had communed with sea mammals. Two years before, they recalled, he had jumped into the manatee tank, which is filled with warmer water and less aggressive creatures.
Notes about Tillikum the killer whale:
The eight-year-old mammal is the largest killer whale in captivity, at twenty-two feet and eleven thousand pounds. He was appraised at $1.5 million when purchased by Sea-World in 1991, where he joined thirteen other killer whales. He was considered dangerous, as he was never trained for human contact. Biologists say he probably played with Daniel like a toy, without realizing that he was a fragile human being.
This is not Tillikum’s first encounter with death. He and two other whales were involved in the drowning of a trainer in Victoria, British Columbia, in 1991. She fell into the whale tank at the SeaLand Marine Park and was dragged beneath the surface to her watery demise.
Tillikum is a fecund marine predator, the sire of four calves born during his breeding stay in Florida. In a comparison between Tillikum and Daniel, it’s clear who is higher on the evolutionary scale.
Reference: Sarasota Herald-Tribune, St. Petersburg Times, Chicago Tribune, Orlando Sentinel, CNN
More Notes about Tillikum the killer whale:
On February 24, 2010, Tilikum was involved in a third incident when he killed Dawn Brancheau, a 40-year-old female trainer. The trainer was drowned after a "Dine with Shamu" show. At least a dozen patrons witnessed Dawn in the water with Tilikum; however, it is unclear how many patrons witnessed enough of the incident to understand at the time that it was out of the ordinary. Employees used nets and threw food at Tilikum in an attempt to distract him.
Moving from pool to pool in the complex, they eventually directed Tilikum to a smaller, medical pool, where it would be easier to calm him. He subsequently released Brancheau's body. A SeaWorld executive, witnesses and video footage from right before the attack confirm that Dawn was lying with her face next to Tilikum's on a slide-out (a platform submerged about a foot into water). SeaWorld said the trainer was pulled into the water by her ponytail and that it may have got caught in Tilikum's teeth, it may have also been confused for a toy, or confused for a fish, because she was holding a fish and may have touched her hair afterwards, leaving the scent. However, some witnesses to the incident claimed that the trainer was pulled into the water by her arm. Brancheau's autopsy indicated death by drowning and blunt force trauma. The autopsy noted that her spinal cord was severed and she sustained fractures to her jawbone, ribs and a cervical vertebra.
On August 23, 2010, the park was fined US$75,000 by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) for three safety violations, two directly related to Brancheau's death. SeaWorld issued a statement that called OSHA's findings "unfounded". Although Scott Brancheau, the widower, hired a Chicago law firm that specializes in wrongful-death litigation, he has not taken any legal action against SeaWorld
