NEW ORLEANS (Aug. 8) - Ten people on a behind-the-scenes tour at an aquarium plunged into a shark tank after a platform collapsed. No one was seriously injured, officials said.
Two people were taken to a hospital for minor cuts and bruises, said Melissa Lee, a spokeswoman for the Aquarium of the Americas.
The accident happened while donors to the aquarium were on an after-hours tour. The platform they were standing on is used by keepers to feed the sharks and is not usually open to the general public, Lee said.
It wasn’t immediately known what caused the steel footbridge above the tank to collapse. The 400,000-gallon tank is home to everything from a few dozen nurse and sand tiger sharks to turtles, schools of redfish and stingrays.
Dan Rooney was on the platform with his family when the platform gave way. He searched frantically for his 2-year-old grandchild before he saw someone hand the toddler to another person on the stable part of the catwalk. ’’I was just praying none of the sharks got agitated from all of the splashing and everything. I mean, they got sharks in there bigger than me,’’ he said. AP-NY-08-08-02 0639EDT