A ten-year-old British girl has been left bloodied and bruised by two bottlenose dolphins during a terrifying encounter in Mexico.
Lexi Yeo was attacked by the animals when she took to the water with them as part of a holiday event in Cancun.
Her mother Laura-Jane Yeo, 40, from Barkingside, east London, was horrified to watch the pair ‘dragging’ her underwater in the sea pen.
The animals would not stop attacking her despite pleas from the trainers, but she was rescued after managing to keep on her bodyboard.
Yet she did not escape unscathed, as she got deep bite marks, cuts and horrendous bruises.
Organisers from Dolphin Discovery put the bad behaviour down to bad sea conditions which made the animals ‘distressed’.
Her mother Laura-Jane Yeo (left, with her daughter), 40, from Barkingside, east London, was horrified to watch the pair ‘dragging’ her underwater in the sea pen
The bosses added it was also down to a male dolphin that ‘shouldn’t have been in the pen’.
Ms Yeo, who is a nursery nurse, told the Sun of the trauma last month: ‘It was terrifying. I thought she was going to die.
‘But I’ve not even had a card, flowers or teddy bear for Lexi from TUI. They have washed their hands of us.
‘More concerning, the dolphins are still swimming with tourists and TUI are continuing to work with the company.’
The company has said it is looking into the incident.
Organisers from Dolphin Discovery put the bad behaviour down to bad sea conditions which made the animals ‘distressed’ (file photo)
Nick Stewart, Global Head of Wildlife Campaigns at World Animal Protection, told MailOnline: ‘This is a tragic example of how support for this cruel industry by travel companies like TUI Group and Expedia Group puts customers at risk.
‘Dolphins are large and powerful marine predators and sadly, when kept in these confined and unnatural conditions, it is not uncommon for harm to come to humans who interact with them.
‘Dolphins at swim-with attractions have been known to seriously hurt humans by butting them and the resulting injuries have included lacerations and broken bones. Dolphins are wild animals, not playthings and not entertainers’.
Do dolphins like swimming with humans?
It is not known exactly why dolphins attack humans or large animals like porpoises as, unlike sharks, they do not eat their victim.
An expert from the IWDG told BBC News it is impossible to know if a dolphin was deliberately attacking a man, or if it was trying to play with him.
Dolphins often engage in rough play, holding each other down and giving chase, so it is possible that the dolphin was playing, but some dolphin experts claim that the creatures sometimes attack humans when they are feeling amorous.
Bottlenose dolphins can display violent mating practices where they act in groups to chase and mate with a female of their own species over weeks, whether she is interested or not.
Male dolphins are also known to fight and kill rivals and offspring, suggesting they could also turn on humans mistakenly.
Trevor Spradlin, a US Federal dolphin expert told The New York Times dozens of bites to humans have been reported and people have been pulled under the water by bottlenose dolphins, which can measure 12ft (3.7 metres) long and have sharp teeth to tear fish and squid.
In one example, he said: ‘A woman who fed a pair of dolphins and then jumped into the water to swim with them was bitten. ”I literally ripped my left leg out of its mouth,” she said during her one-week stay in the hospital.’
