5-Year-Old Girl Swims With Sharks

This one should make your heart stop, or at the very least blurt out a gasp. This video of a 5-year-old girl swimming with sharks was recorded by her parents and posted to be "cute," but it has been seen by others as anything but cute.

David and Elena Barnes returned from the Bahamas and decided to share a home video of their family snorkeling with sharks on YouTube.

(Note to self, if you don't know how to set privacy policies on YouTube, don't post anything) What was meant to be viewed by friends and family, was quickly went picked up by the minions who seek out the "next big thing"  on YouTube and it viral.

In some cases, that is a thing of beauty, however,  in this case these parents would have rather have keep their anonymity because of the ensuing controversy.

People who know about sharks will tell you that it is safe to feed nurse, reef, and lemon sharks, which the boat operators are doing at the beginning. Later in the video, David, Elena, and their five-year-old daughter Anaia are seen swimming with them. These are, after all, wild animals.

As the video piled up hits, the dog-piling began.  Over the next day, the comments ranged from being criticized the parents for putting their daughter in danger to support for their actions. Eventually, the couple disabled commenting on the video and left a message defending their parenting skills. They explained that these varieties of sharks are rarely aggressive and that the company in the Bahamas has been operating for twenty years without incident.

They also appeared on “Good Morning America” to defend themselves. “Life is too short to be boring,” said Elena. “There’s just always risk assessments in life every day,” added David. “I’m more concerned that they don’t put seatbelts in school buses.”