Trainer’s horrific death as SeaWorld orca crushed him and ‘violently played with his body’

A SeaWorld trainer suffered a horrendous death at the hands of an orca that was born in captivity.

Keto, a 6,600lb male, was the first orca to be born in a SeaWorld theme park.

Born in 1995 to Kalina, the huge killer whale spent his whole life being confined to a swimming pool and entertaining crowds of tourists at Loro Parque in Tenerife.

The mammal has also been transported around the world to perform at theme parks in San Diego, Ohio, and Texas before he was moved to his current Spanish home.

The horrific incident occurred at SeaWorld. Credit: Matt Stroshane / Getty

Just three years after his final move, something in Keto snapped as he launched a frightening attack on one of his trainers, Alexis Martínez, who spent several successful years working with whales.

On Christmas Eve, 2009, the 29-year-old and the whale were working on the Christmas show in a training pool. Everything seemed normal but then the enormous orca started to behave strangely and failed to execute several of his moves correctly, per The Mirror.

According to The Daily Star, Martínez tried a stand-on spy hop, a movement where the trainer stands on the killer whale’s rostrum, or the tip of its beak, as it rises up and out of the water. Keto co-operated but was inclined to one side, which caused the trainer to fall off.

When the same thing occurred on the second attempt, the trainer reacted with a least-reinforcing scenario (LRS), which is when you give a neutral response and withhold the prize.

But as Keto was reportedly awarded two handfuls of fish after following another trainer’s call, Martinez decided to attempt a haul-down into stage haul-out, which means he would ride the orca down into the pool and up onto the stage.

However, the orca plunged too deep, forcing Martinez to leave the move near the bottom of the 12-metre pool.

“The animal in question moved towards him and hit him and violently played with his body.” Credit: Sandy Huffaker / Getty

The incident report states that Keto surfaced with Alexis and seemed calm, but “appeared to position himself between Alexis and the stage. Alexis waited for calm from Keto and requested a stage call via underwater tone”.

Trainer Brian Rokeach documented that the whale did not seem “committed to remaining under control” and looked “a little big-eyed” so he offered him a hand target. Once Keto looked calm, he told Martinez, who was in the middle of the show pool, to float slowly to a ramp leading to the other pools.

Unfortunately, Keto saw Martinez moving and decided to carry out his cruel attack by forcefully ramming him to the bottom of the pool with his beak. According to Orca Ocean assistant supervisor Rafael Sanchez: “The animal in question moved towards him and hit him and violently played with his body.”

Trainers tried to get the killer whale’s attention by hitting the water or banging a bucket, but it wasn’t until 30 seconds later that Keto took notice and left Martinez at the bottom of the pool. After taking a quick breath, he returned to the trainer and came to the surface with his lifeless body across his beak.

Keto was referred to another pool before Martinez’s body was recovered from the pool. The trainer’s colleagues tried to save him before he was rushed to hospital but he tragically died from the horrific injuries and internal bleeding.

Martinez tragically died from the horrific injuries and internal bleeding. Credit: Wolfgang Kaehler / Getty

Loro Parque’s bosses disclosed in a statement that the death was an “unfortunate accident,” and gave a possible cause of death as asphyxiation as a result of compression of his chest.

They also added that Martinez “was knocked by the orca in an unexpected reaction of the animal,” explaining that the killer whale’s conduct “did not correspond to the way in which these marine mammals attack their prey in the wild, but was rather a shifting of position”.

However, the autopsy report described a violent attack, stating that the late trainer – who expressed concerns over the killer whales in his journals – had “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”.

Keto, now 26, remains at Loro Parque where he performs to this day.