A female whale trainer died this afternoon at SeaWorld’s Shamu Stadium in Orlando, Florida, with witnesses saying she was killed during a public "Killer Whale" show.

According to the Orlando Sentinel, a local TV station is reporting that a female employee was killed after she was grabbed by one of the theme park's whales at the start of a public show.

A park guest and witness told the local TV station that the veteran trainer had just introduced the show to the audience when the whale shot out of the water and grabbed the woman.

"He was thrashing her around pretty good. It was violent,'" she said, according to the Local 6 report.

The whale "took off really fast in the tank, and then he came back, shot up in the air, grabbed the trainer by the waist and started thrashing around, and one of her shoes flew off."

Sirens sounded and everyone was evacuated from the park. Orange County Fire Rescue were called to the park at 2 p.m. and said the trainer wasn't breathing when they arrived.

According to reports, she did not survive the attack.

SeaWorld is owned by The Blackstone Group (BX), which acquired the park's previous owner Busch Entertainment Company (BEC). The Blackstone Group also owns about half of the Universal Orlando resort and theme parks.

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"We're terribly saddened by the loss of the member of our SeaWorld family — it doesn't matter what park," San Diego park spokesman David Koontz said.

When Orange County firefighters arrived at the park less than five minutes after receiving a 911 call, Brancheau was already dead, a spokesman said. The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration dispatched an investigator from Tampa.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, a longtime critic of SeaWorld's practices, again called on the park "to stop confining oceangoing mammals to an area that to them is like the size of a bathtub," it said in a statement.

"It's not surprising when these huge, smart animals lash out."

Many other animal-rights activists have long criticized SeaWorld and other marine parks for keeping orcas and other wildlife in captivity. Russ Rector, a former dolphin trainer in Fort Lauderdale, said keeping the animals captive makes them dangerous.

"Captivity is abusive to these animals. And the abuse mounts up. And when these animals snap — just for a minute — they're so big and can be so dangerous that it's like a shotgun," Rector said. "It does an incredible amount of damage in just a moment."

At SeaWorld on Wednesday afternoon, guests were turned away from the walkways that lead to Shamu Stadium and were told the 5:30 p.m. show was canceled.

Outside the park entrance, people were talking about the accident. Several said the killer whales had not behaved normally during the 12:30 p.m. show.

Brad Sultan of Tampa said one of three orcas that was supposed to create a triangle with its trainers didn't do it. Another orca that was supposed to swim around the tank and splash made it only about a quarter of the way, he said.