Stop Blaming The Parents

Haven't the parents of little Lane Graves been through enough?

As Orlando struggled to deal with yet another tragic blow this week, with the revelation of two-year-old Lane Graves’ body found at the bottom of the Seven Seas Lagoon after being dragged in by an alligator, the world immediately began judging.

As Orlando struggled to deal with yet another tragic blow this week, with the revelation of two-year-old Lane Graves’ body found at the bottom of the Seven Seas Lagoon after being dragged in by an alligator, the world immediately began judging.

Facebook comments popped up fast and furious:

“Those parents are 100% to blame! Where was his dad?”

“This is like the gorilla incident, but worse!”

“They were so stupid to let their child wade into the water.”

How can America be so cruel in rushing to point the finger at Matt and Melissa Graves? Were you there on that sandy stretch of beach? We still don’t know the circumstances of where mom and dad were. Wasn’t it enough for dad to try and wrestle his son from the jaws of this beast?

We all make mistakes.

This was a freak accident.

This was a family from Elkhart, Nebraska having a good time, relaxing on their Disney vacation, and the last thing on their minds was their son being at risk from a leathery Florida beast.

Then there were those who were quick to point the finger at Disney.

“Where were the gator signs? No swimming signs aren’t enough.”

“Did the lifeguard do anything to stop the boy?”

“Disney should have removed the gators.”

The fact of the matter: this is Florida. We are surrounded by bodies of water. The state’s Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission reports over a million of these creatures in our state and 23 fatalities since 1973. Getting killed by a gator is a rare occurrence. The last time a child died from a gator attack was in 2001, when a two-year-old used her gymnastics agility to climb over a fence into a pond.

Disney has a team of professionals that remove problematic animals, and they did so five times during the week before Lane was taken. Seven Seas Lagoon is man-made but opens into a natural body of water, so gators do get in.

Fresh off the terrifying trifecta of the murder of singer Christina Grimmie, the worst mass shooting in American history at Pulse nightclub, and now the freak accident of little Lane Graves’ death, Orlando needs to grieve. The family needs to heal. They need our support, not our judgement and criticism. Perhaps if we did this, instead of rushing to indict Matt and Melissa Graves of being negligent parents, we could spend more time gathering the facts and finding a solution so this doesn’t happen again.

Dion Lim is the 5/6/11pm anchor/reporter at WTSP, the CBS station in Tampa Bay. You can follow her at her Facebook fan page here.