TRAGEDY: Alligator Snatches Toddler in Front of Parents at Disney Resort

ORLANDO — Some 50 wildlife specialists, including a trained alligator trapper, were combing a lake Wednesday at a Disney World resort hotel looking for a 2-year-old boy snatched while wading on a beach by a 7- to 8-foot alligator.

The effort was still considered a “search and rescue operation,” said Jeff Williamson, a spokesman for the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.

“We are very hopeful,” he said at a morning news conference. “Sometimes you get the worst, but we are hoping for the best.”

The reptile grabbed the toddler Tuesday evening as the boy played in about a foot of water at the Seven Seas Lagoon at the Grand Floridian Hotel with his father.

“The father entered the water, and he tried to grab the child, but was not successful in doing so,” Orange County Sheriff Jerry Demings told reporters at an early morning news conference.

READ MORE HERE:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/06/14/reports-alligator-drags-child-into-water-fla/85905266/