I'm a Florida native, but I live in Nebraska, so this is doubly tragic for me.
These parents just didn't know what they didn't know. People up here see lakes and rivers as places to play.
I look at them and see death. I grew up in both South and Northern Florida. If it's a body of fresh water, deeper than your ankles, and you can't see the bottom of the entire thing, you have to assume there is a gator in it. If not a gator, a snake, or some nasty microbe. If it's salt water, there's a shark. You swim in pools or clear COLD springs, and you check those before you get in. Gators & sharks are dangerous 24/7, but they tend to feed at night.
When my DD was 11, we took a road trip to FL, and one evening we visited people with a lake house. She waded in the water a little, but as dusk came, I made her get out of the water and move away from the shoreline. Because I knew what was out there. When we moved over to a friend's condo at the beach, I made her get out of the water before dark because I know the sharks come in closer to the beach to feed at night.
As a kid, however, I had watched fly fishing shows, and used to wade into the Miami River canal at the boat ramp to my knees and fish with nasty stinking bologna. Not far from where the big kids kept putting up a rope swing - that the cops cut down regularly and lectured on the danger of gators. Sometimes, you know, but you don't really understand.
This is just the worst kind of tragedy. These people just didn't know the dangers.
And to make it worse - they witnessed it. Probably from the stories I've heard so far, a 6-8ft gator slipped in close to shore attracted by the baby splashing. A two year old is too big for a gator that size to swallow whole like its normal prey of birds, turtles, or small mammals, so it would do what gators always do - it grabbed that boy by the arm or leg and started dragging him back into the water. Kid had a moment to scream or made a splash as he was pulled down - Dad tried to grab him and pull him back, but you simply can not fight a gator in the water and win very often. Gator took that baby, drowned him, and has put him in a cut under a bank or under a snag someplace in the lake where it keeps its cache. That's why they are having trouble finding his body. They are having to look in every nook and cranny and sonar the whole lake - and it might have taken him over to the Bay Lake side or down a creek. It will be a day or two before the gators decide he's ripe enough to eat. They might find him then, but given that sweet baby isn't very big, there's a chance he will never be found or not found for years. And I know that's beyond horrifying, but that's what happens. And there are over a million gators in Florida, so you can't hunt them all or keep them out of the lagoon.
You just need to know - fresh water in FL = gators, snakes and amoebas. It's even more dangerous at dark. And little kids are no different from dogs or other small mammals in the eyes of a predator. I'm sure every one of you has seen a video of a large cat stalking a baby from behind the glass at a zoo.
God Bless those people. They came to the happiest place on earth with their kids to have a vacation - and they are leaving with their worst nightmare and possibly not even a baby to bury. Pray for them. I am.
