A 5-year-old girl and a male motorcyclist died in separate College Park accidents last week – the girl in what officials have initially ruled an accidental drowning in a community pool and the man in an early-morning traffic collision.
Darma Haile, 5, was at the Ellen Linson Swimming Pool on the 5200 block of Paint Branch Parkway just after 2 p.m. Friday when she was spotted laying at the bottom of the shallow end of the pool in less than three feet of water, according to Prince George’s County Police spokesman Henry Tippett.
“She was in fairly shallow water, but it doesn’t take a whole lot [of water] to drown somebody,” Tippett said.
Lifeguards pulled Haile out of the water and administered CPR until emergency personnel arrived and transported her to Washington Adventist Hospital in Takoma Park, said Craig Kellstrom, a spokesman for the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission, which operates the pool.
She was pronounced dead at the hospital at 3:10 p.m., Kellstrom said.
The day before, William Gene Morris, Jr., 40, of Beltsville, was riding his motorcycle south on Route 1 at about 4:45 a.m. when he collided with a Ford Escort, according to Prince George’s County Police spokesman Clinton Copeland.
The Escort was heading in t he opposite direction when it made a left turn at Metzerott Road, blocking Morris’s path, Clinton said.
Morris crashed into the car and flew off of his motorcycle; EMS personnel responded and took him to Prince George’s Hospital Center where he was pronounced dead. Police declined to release the name of the other driver but did say the 46-year-old man from Rockville stayed at the scene and was cooperating with police.
“It doesn’t appear there was anything relating to alcohol or speed involved,” Copeland said. “But it is an ongoing investigation.”
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