http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/seaworld-t...ory?id=9952102
A mistake by trainer Dawn Brancheau prompted a killer whale to drag her into the water to her death, a former mentor of Brancheau's said today.
"Dawn, if she was standing here with me, would tell you that it was her mistake that it happened," Thad Lacinak, former head trainer at SeaWorld and Brancheau's teacher, told "Good Morning America." "Dawn was one of the best killer whale trainers I've ever worked with. ... It looks like she made the mistake."
Lacinak said Brancheau was apparently lying down in a 4-inch "slide out" that trainers are meant to stand on while interacting with the whale when her ponytail drifted toward the mouth of the 12,000-pound animal.
"He pulled her in by the ponytail," Lacinak said. "I'm pretty sure it was her breaking protocol. ... Sometimes we get too comfortable working with these animals. Sometimes we forget what they are."
Brancheau, 40, an experienced trainer, was snatched by the whale in front of a stadium of horrified onlookers, thrashed and ultimately held under water to drown Wednesday.
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