LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — On this day in 2016, horrible tragedy struck Walt Disney World. Two-year-old Lane Graves and his family were enjoying time in the early evening on the sandy beach area adjacent to Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort. Under the watchful eye of his parents, Lane wandered into Seven Seas Lagoon to roughly ankle depth when he was attacked by an alligator and pulled into the water. Lane’s dad tried valiantly to save his son, wrestling with the gator, but to no avail. Lane’s body was found the next day.
Now, according to published reports, Disney has commissioned a special memorial lighthouse sculpture to be placed at a still to be determined site at WDW.
The lighthouse is significant given his parents, Matt and Melissa Graves, efforts to keep Lane’s memory alive while helping others with the forming of the Lane Thomas Foundation. Soon after Lane’s death, his parent announced they deemed the tragedy an accident and would not be suing The Walt Disney Company .instead, they would establish the Lane Thomas Foundation in his honor. The purpose of the foundation is to support pediatric organ donation. The foundation symbol is a lighthouse.
“To provide continued awareness of the foundation and its mission, we’ve commissioned an original sculpture of the lighthouse the foundation uses as a symbol of love and hope, to be installed on our property this summer,” George A. Kalogridis, president of Walt Disney World Resort, said in a statement Tuesday.”
The Lane Thomas Foundation’s Facebook page says the boy’s surname was included because whenever someone asked Lane’s name, he’d reply “I’m Lane Thomas. I’m two.”