Matt Graves tried to pry his 2-year-old son Lane from the jaws of an alligator as he wrestled with the scaly beast on Tuesday. His wife Melissa screamed for a lifeguard to help.
The Nebraska couple, who since Sunday stayed at the Grand Floridian Resort and Spa near the Magic Kingdom park, were on vacation with Lane and their 4-year-old daughter.
It would be their last as a complete family.
After a 16-hour search for the boy sent helicopters overhead and boats into the man-made lake, divers with the Orange County Sheriff's Office Wednesday found Lane's remains. They recovered his body, intact, about 15 yards from the shore, six feet underwater. It appears Lane drowned in the roughly 172-acre lake after the gator pulled him underwater about 9 p.m., said Orange County Sheriff Jerry Demings.
Lane's death marks the first alligator attack on the park's property since a predator bit the legs of an 8-year-old boy, who survived, on Disney's Fort Wilderness campground in 1986. The accident brings more grief to Orange County after the worst mass shooting in U.S. history Sunday and the slaying of singer Christina Grimmie following a Friday concert.
During Wednesday's search for Lane, investigators pulled and killed five gators from the area but have not determined the culprit. Officials estimated the responsible gator to be between four and seven feet long and must compare teeth marks to find it.
text - orlandosentinel.com
photos - dailymail
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