SeaWorld trainer Alexis Martínez had been working with Keto the orca in 2009 when the killer whale attacked and killed him
A SeaWorld trainer was brutally killed by a captive orca, suffering horrific injuries during the attack.
The orca was called Keto, a whale who was born in captivity and had never been released out into the wild.
Trainer Alexis Martínez had been working with orcas for several years prior to the incident and was a highly experienced handler.
But while training for a series of Christmas shows in December 2009, he noticed that something had changed in the orca’s behaviour.
Martínez had been one of several trainers who were working with Keto that day, and had been performing an underwater routine.
Keto had not responded properly to the usual training mechanisms used with the whales.
This meant that another trainer had to intervene in the routine in an effort to save Martínez.
However this proved to be ineffective and Keto used the tip of his snout to pin Martínez to the floor of the pool.
Other trainers had desperately tried to remedy the situation and regain control over the orca.
Things seems to look up for a moment when Keto returned to the surface of the pool to breathe.
But the whale descended back down to the bottom of the pool where Martínez was.
Eventually trainers were able to use a net to separate the orca from Martínez, allowing them to finally retrieve his body from the tank.
Martínez was killed in the attack, sustaining multiple injuries.
A report into the cause of death said that he ‘died due to grave injuries sustained by an orca attack, including multiple compression fractures, tears to vital organs, and the bite marks of the animal on his body’.
Martínez is one of four people who are recorded as having been killed by orcas in captivity.
Keto was only involved in the death of one person, but one orca was involved in the deaths of three people.
This was Tilikum, a bull orca who was the subject of the Netflix documentary Blackfish.
Another of the four people to have been killed was trainer Dawn Brancheau who was killed during a live performance.
John Hargrove, a senior trainer at SeaWorld, said: “We’ll never know why Tilikum made that choice to grab Dawn and pull her into the pool.
“He had a great relationship with her, and she had a great relationship with him. I do believe that he loved her, and I know that she loved him.”
No fatal attacks on humans have been recorded by wild orcas.