The incident occurred at Loro Parque on Tenerife, in the Canary Islands. German Claudia Vollhardt, 29, was practising a trick with a 1.5-ton male orca, where they would swam together with the whale pushing her along with its nose pressed up against her feet.
Things went pear-shaped when the whale came up from below and, after ramming against Vollhardt's chest, took her right arm in its mouth and dragged her under. It proceeded to swim about, surfacing and submerging several times in the 12m-deep pool, before letting her go.
Hospitalised, Vollhardt's faith in the orca, named Tekoa, remained undiminished. She insisted that the incident had been an accident, not an attack. |
