UPDATE: According to reports by the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, the incident has been deemed an apparent suicide attempt. The full update can be found here.
Recent reports from the Magic Kingdom indicate that a guest has fallen from the window of a ferryboat and into Seven Seas Lagoon.
Initial reports are coming from Twitter user @ithemepark, who reported on the incident about an hour ago.
A park guest just fell from the window of the Ferry Boat into Seven Sea Lagoon. @WaltDisneyWorld
— ithemepark (@ithemepark) December 31, 2019
It seems that the guest has since been rescued. A guest named Rachel Thompson was on the ferry boat when the incident took place:
I was on the boat when this happened. She fell off the top deck and was rescued by a rescue boat. She was about 300 yards from the ferry when she was rescued.
— Rachel Thompson (@Rachthom77) December 31, 2019
The woman was apparently on the top deck of the ferry boat when she fell into the lagoon. She was rescued about 300 yards away.
According to @ithemepark, response time to rescue the guest was “terrible” due to delays:
I think so. Response time was terrible to help them.
— ithemepark (@ithemepark) December 31, 2019
As a result of the incident, ferry boat transportation service to the TTC and Magic Kingdom is temporarily unavailable and guests are being asked to take monorail and bus transportation back to the TTC. The guest’s condition is currently unknown.
https://twitter.com/Waltspark/status/1211818064964194305?s=20
We’ll continue to update this post as further reports surface.
She didn’t fall, she jumped into the water. I was around 6 to 7 feet away when it happened
I think this site is just trying to find something wrong, but now you come through. Why is no one else reported that?
I would assume they were asked not to.
As a former cast member in the watercraft group which is responsible for running the boats in seven seas lagoon and bay lake I have to say the delayed response time doesn’t surprise me one bit. I think the culture within that group was distinctly poor. A lot of do your job and keep your head down from the folks on the front lines, in order to not catch flak from the coordinators and Managers.
Ex 1. Shove more than the maximum capacity on the ferry because it was easier than telling guest they would have to wait for the next one.
Ex 2. Leadership often misused the boats we had for their own enjoyment instead of for the boat’s intended purpose. One example that comes to mind is a certain who hilariously was a winner of the Walt Disney Legacy Award (Blue Background name plate) decided to use the “pusher boat” which is a seriously fast boat with dual engines mounted on the rear as his own personal watercraft and would tear around on the lakes at high speed even in areas that were very much idle only.
What does that really have to do with a guest who intentionally jumped off a moving boat?