It was her dream job, but Dawn Brancheau never thought it would cost her life.

“When she was 11 years old, we took the family to SeaWorld and she said, ‘I wanna be a Shamu trainer,’” Brancheau’s heartbroken mother, Marion LoVerde, told the Daily News on Wednesday night.

An orca whale trainer at SeaWorld in Orlando, Brancheau, 40, was killed Wednesday by the same species that captured her imagination 29 years ago on a family vacation.

“She loved her work,” said the tearful LoVerde, who spent last weekend with her daughter and son-in-law, Scott Brancheau.