I turned for one second and…Gorilla Shot Dead at the Cincinnati Zoo after a child falls into the enclosure!

Can we just talk about the dead Gorilla at the Cincinnati Zoo for a minute?

I LOVE animals. I have to many animals actually because I love them so much. However, I love my kids more than my animals, I love your kids more than my animals and I even love you more than my animals.

Okay so here is the story.

O’Connor who filmed the incident, said she heard the 4-year-old (later we learn he is 3) say he wanted to go into the gorilla moat.

“The little boy himself had already been talking about wanting to … get in the water. The mother’s like, ‘No, you’re not, no, you’re not,'” O’Connor recalled, adding that the mother was taking care of several other children. –WLWT5

Just before 4 p.m. on Saturday, the boy climbed through the barrier around the gorilla enclosure then fell 12 feet into the moat surrounding the exhibit. (Thank God there was a moat there!) Then, the gorilla, being a gorilla, pulled the kid away either to protect the kid or play with it, whatever. The point is, he is a gorilla and his intentions may have been good, but it was not a safe situation nonetheless.

“I don’t know if the screaming did it or too many people hanging on the edge, if he thought we were coming in, but then he pulled the boy down away further from the big group,” Kim O’Connor, who shot the video, told NBC station WLWT.

In the video, the boys mom can be heard screaming “Mommy loves you.”

“I’m right here,” a woman shouts, while others shriek in the background. “Please protect him, God, please protect him.”

Cincinnati Fire Chief Marc Monahan said Saturday that first responders saw the gorilla “dragging and throwing the child.” Weather the Gorilla wanted to hurt the boy or not, it obviously wasn’t safe for him!
The 3-year-old was in the enclosure for more than 10 minutes before he was rescued and taken to Cincinnati Children’s Hospital in serious condition, officials said. He was released from the hospital on Saturday night and was safe at home, his family said Sunday. (Thank you Jesus!) Harambe was fatally shot during the rescue. “The Zoo security team’s quick response saved the child’s life,” Cincinnati Zoo Director Thane Maynard said. But he expressed remorse that the Western lowland silverback, a critically endangered species, had to be killed. (Okay cool, I get that!) “The zoo’s in the business of taking care of endangered animals, and we don’t want to be in the situation in which they have to be killed, Harambe was a good guy.” Maynard said at a news conference Saturday. The boy’s family said they understood that killing Harambe was a “very difficult decision for them, and that they are grieving the loss of their gorilla. We are so thankful to the Lord that our child is safe. He is home and doing just fine. We extend our heartfelt thanks for the quick action by the Cincinnati Zoo staff.” Maynard said Harambe wasn’t tranquilized because the drugs could have taken a while to become effective in an animal of Harambe’s size and the tranquilizer would have further aggravated the gorilla.
Okay, at this point here are my feelings: Thank God this sweet little 3 year old is safe! It totally sucks that they had to kill an animal to keep him safe. I pray the family will emotionally recover quickly from this trauma and that the people at the zoo are able to cope with the loss of the gorilla.

Then, social media happens…great….

“This gorilla was killed bc [because] of parents negligence,” wrote one person on Twitter.

Facebook statements:

• “They need to charge this asshat mother with neglect. I am by no means an animal lover but this gorilla died for no fucking reason other than her ignorance and poor care of her own child. She should go to jail.” .
• I’m so pissed! Why dont people watch their freaking kids? Innocent gorilla was killed because of dumb people ..
• This is the fault of a negligent parent and they should have to answer for this sad and unnecessary tragedy!

Anyways I could go on all day with the negativity towards this family on social media.

CNN posted an article that I absolutely love!

In this 21st-century age of viral connectedness, all of us are processing a muted version of that same shock and fear. And now we are doing what we always do: Starting to point our fingers in judgment. Check the article out here! – CNN

So, in honor of these people who think they know exactly what was going on even though they were not there, I decided to write a post about things my kids and other peoples kids have done when we turn around for just a second. Have my children ever been in a life threatening situation in one second, no they haven’t…not yet anyways. But, that doesn’t mean it wont happen one day! So, here you go:

I turned around for one second and…

• My little one is only five months, so there is limited trouble he can get into. But recently I turned around for one second and he had a dryer sheet in his mouth. Oh, did I mention that he had military crawled across the room to get it? So, now he can “crawl”
• My mom got up (taking the tape and scissors with her) to grab a gift she left on the couch, and when she sat back down about 40 seconds later, my sister was chewing on something hard. It sounded like a peanut. It was a blue C9 Christmas bulb that she had unscrewed from the tree. She had eaten all of the blue glass and had just the metal base in her hand. Yep. That one baffled poison control.
• I was standing in line at the ice cream truck at the park to get frozen novelties for my two kids, and mentioned that we would find a picnic table where we could sit and they could eat their ice cream. My then 3YO daughter took it upon herself to head off in search of said picnic table. I hollered and in about 10 seconds, had the whole park mobilized looking for her. Somebody walked her back to me very shortly after. She had a big “WHAT??” look on her face.
• I was cooking some delicious mac ‘n cheese for my toddler one day when I turned around for one second to find the strainer. The next thing I know is my stove is on fire. Turns out he’d grabbed a plastic mixing bowl off the table and in an effort to help out he’d thrown it onto the stove… on the burner and it had caught fire nice and fast.
• I noticed the house was a little to quiet so I went to check on the kids and my 3 and 4 old were giving each other hair cuts. There was hair all over the bathroom floor!
• We were at Disney’s Animal Kingdom with our oldest son (at that time, only son) when he was about 3. We were at The Boneyard where the kids can play at digging up fake fossils. We thought it was this one rather small, contained area. We got distracted talking to each other and in a second he was gone. We were sitting next to what we thought was the only entrance, so we knew he didn’t go out there. But it turned out that there was an overhead bridge from that part of the area to another part across the walkway. He’d gone up and over to the other area that we didn’t even know about until he wandered back nonchalantly and told us how much fun he’d had on the other side.
• Toaster on fire,
  Windex being sprayed on the wall and licking it off
  Pen all over the wall, finished cleaning it off turn around he’s doing it again !!
  Any chip bag even on your lap would be instantly dumped on the floor,
  climbing out of his crib at 1 onto a shelf or whatever the hell is near it
  Hiding in the clothing racks at the store and giving me a heart attack !
  Grabbing my pills out of my hand and eating them.
  Dumping grout the builders had left all over my carpet!
  Ripping the front of my daughter’s crib off
  Routinely pulling all of the clothes out of my daughter’s closet,
  Pushing the tv in my room off of the stand
  Flooding the bathroom and pulling open the drawer so I couldn’t open the door
  Drew all over himself in marker,
  I’m sure there’s more I’ll think of after this.. and yes this is one kid!

I would love love LOVE to hear your, “I turned around for one second and…” stories! Submit them below in the comments or Email them to me and I will write another post about the fun of parenthood!
~Laura Wright You may also like:

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I turned for one second and...Gorilla Shot Dead at the Cincinnati Zoo after a child falls into the enclosure!

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I turned for one second and...Gorilla Shot Dead at the Cincinnati Zoo after a child falls into the enclosure! Stories about kids and their crazy adventures when you turn your back.

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Laura Wright

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Living Wright

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