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The Walt Disney World resort the place an Illinois girl traveled to earlier than she took her personal life is infamous for suicides.
The physique of Disney superfan Summer time Equitz, 31, from Naperville, was discovered on the Modern Resort Resort on the Florida park on Tuesday night time.
Equitz, from the Chicago suburb Naperville, obtained married final 12 months, honeymooned at Disney World in October and introduced she was pregnant two months later. It’s unclear if she had the child.
The long-lasting resort the place Equitz took her life opened in 1971 and has sadly been the location of a number of related tragic incidents in recent times.
On March 22, 2016, a visitor allegedly jumped to their demise from the central A-frame tower of the resort, in accordance with experiences on the time.
Little or no different details about the incident or the sufferer was given on the time.
On a March 2020 afternoon, a lady jumped from the Modern Resort in entrance of horrified company.
She was discovered lifeless by emergency crews after they arrived, deputies and officers from Disney’s Reedy Creek Enchancment District advised WESH on the time.
“Right now, we imagine this was a suicide, and we now have no different data to launch,” the Orange County Sheriff’s Workplace mentioned in a press release.
And in July 2023, a person allegedly took his personal life on the resort resort.
One purported resort visitor claimed “safety wouldn’t enable us to take the fifth flooring bridge to Modern this morning,” in a submit on X on the time.
“Walked exterior and noticed the scene being cleaned up [and] investigated from a distance. Obvious suicide. Prayers to the household,” they added.
Police corroborated the stunning incident in a press release.
“On July 26, 2023, at 5:33 a.m., deputies responded to the Modern Resort after a name got here in a few man discovered unresponsive on the resort grounds. He was pronounced deceased on scene,” the assertion learn.
The Modern Resort, exterior of Magic Kingdom, is arguably probably the most iconic of the greater than 25 inns on the Disney World property.
The location’s monorail, which connects the Modern Resort to the Magic Kingdom and a number of different inns, runs straight into the foyer. As soon as there, company can dine and take footage with Mickey, Minnie, Pluto and Daffy at Chef Mickey’s — Disney World’s unique character meal restaurant, established in 1977 and initially known as Coconino Cove.
Jim Hill of the “Disney Dish” podcast beforehand talked to The Submit concerning the horrific affiliation between the Modern Resort and suicides.
“There’s this bizarre phenomenon the place people who find themselves severely depressed however need to have that one final good completely happy household reminiscence will go to Walt Disney World,” Hill mentioned in 2022.
“They’ll intentionally e book a room on the Modern Resort, which is 14 tales tall. And after that completely happy household time, they’ll throw themselves off the constructing,” he mentioned.
However suicides and different mishaps on Disney property are sometimes shielded from the general public by the Home of Mouse, he claimed.
“Disney truly has a cover setup to allow them to pretty shortly cowl the physique,” mentioned Hill. “They struggle very arduous to protect people from tragedy.”
“[Back in the day] Walt Disney World [had] its personal hearth and emergency gear, so if someone died there or was fatally harm and there have been no indicators of life, there was this rule that they had been imagined to proceed heroic efforts till their emergency automobile left the property,” Hill mentioned in 2022.
Throughout one such incident a long time in the past, a person who died by suicide — placing a gun to his personal head in the course of Epcot — wasn’t pronounced lifeless till a lot later, in accordance with the Nineties e book “Contained in the Mouse.”
“The medic advised me that they aren’t allowed to allow them to die there,” a solid member advised the group of authors on the time. “Hold them alive by synthetic means till they’re off Disney property, like there’s an imaginary line within the highway, and so they go, ‘He’s alive, he’s alive, he’s lifeless.’”
However in a world the place each cellphone has a digicam, the Disney powers that be have had a harder time conserving suicides and accidents out of the headlines.
Walt Disney World didn’t reply to requests for remark Thursday.
