Featured Image Credit: SeaWorld
Topics: Animals
Aisha Nozari
It’s been 16 years since former SeaWorld trainer Ken Peters was almost killed by one of the park’s orcas, Kasatka.
But that doesn’t make the footage any less terrifying, as you can see for yourself below:
Shortly after Peters entered the water with Kasatka, the situation turned south.
Kasatka was supposed to lift Peters up out of the water with her nose, but instead, she grabbed him by the foot and dragged him down towards the bottom of the pool.
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Every so often, Kasatka would swim back up to the surface, and Peters would desperately try to gulp in air before being dragged down to the bottom of the pool again.
Extraordinarily, Peters survived the encounter with nothing but a broken foot after slipping his limp from Kasatka’s jaws and swimming as fast as he could back to his co-workers, who hauled him from the pool.
Speaking after his near-death experience, Peters said: “I could get killed in a car accident today, but I still get in a car. Even when I was down at the bottom of the pool, I thought she’d let me go."
The footage of Kasatka - who weighed 5,000 pounds - dragging Peters to the bottom of her tank first aired in Blackfish, the 2013 documentary about the horrible toll captivity has on orcas.
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In 2017, it was announced that Kasatka was put down at the age of 41 after battling lung disease.
After Kasatka died, her former trainer John Hargrove hit out at SeaWorld, alleging that the mammal died of bacterial infections because her immune system was impaired by years of antibiotic taking.
He told MailOnline: “By the end she had lesions on her face, like an Aids patient. SeaWorld will never release the autopsy but the internal wounds will be far worse.”
Hargrove added: “I have to speak out because if it stops just one person paying to go to a park where orcas are tortured to perform circus tricks, then Kasatka's death won't have been in vain.”
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Hargrove also admitted he once ‘bought into SeaWorld’s lies’, telling the paper: “They claim captive orcas help educate people, and for years I bought into it. But Kasatka lived in misery, in barbaric and horrific conditions, and died in agony.
“She lived out her days in a house of horrors – and I was complicit in selling the lie to the public.”
LADbible has approached SeaWorld for comment.