The trainer, German national Claudia Vollhardt, 29, suffered a broken arm and a badly bruised chest. The trainer was 29-year-old German national Claudia Vollhardt, and she remained in hospital on Monday after her weekend scare at Loro Parque, a zoo in Puerto de la Cruz, on the Spanish Canary Island of Tenerife.
Ms Volhardt was working with a 1.36-tonne male orca named Tekoa on Saturday, practising a trick in which they swim together with the whale pushing her feet from behind with its snout.
The whale slammed the woman in the chest from underneath and ended up pulling her right arm, park officials said.
Pulling Vollhardt with her, the whale submerged and resurfaced several times in the 12-metre-deep tank before it finally released the instructor.
Loro Parque spokeswoman Patricia Delponti has insisted the whole thing was an accident, not an attack.
Read the story posted by Joaquin Costa of the Scuba Herald.
