Katharina Buczek
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In June, Jennifer Buhl and her family traveled to Cancun from Philadelphia for a relaxing summer vacation. They had been at Club Med, a four-star resort, for just over one week.
From water activities during the day to shows on the pool deck at night, all was perfect. That was until June 18th, when a crocodile attacked Buhl’s twelve-year-old son Charlie.
“Club Med is different from most resorts in that everything they do encourages meeting and mingling amongst the guests and the resort’s activity guides,” Buhl wrote on Happy Hour Headshot.
There, she recounts in detail the moments leading up to the attack, the terrifying discovery of her son, and the long and painful recovery process.
While staying in Cancun, Buhl’s sons Charlie and Johnny were a part of the Kids Club/Teen Club.
Most evenings, Charlie would eat with his friends before meeting back up with his mom for the nightly pool deck show.
“It was around 8:30 p.m. when we sat down at the main restaurant,” Buhl wrote, “At around 8:45 p.m., Johnny left with one of his friends to go to his Kids Club performance by the pool deck.”
Buhl and her friend, Maria, had just returned from visiting the chocolate fondue fountain before receiving the gut-wrenching news.
One of Charlie’s friends from the Kids Club, Louis, and his father found Buhl at her dining table. “The dad said something like, ‘Jennifer, I believe your son has been attacked by a crocodile,'” Buhl recalled, “The horror in that moment and over the next twenty seconds continues to haunt me.”
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