Death at hotel ruled accidental
OCEAN CITY -- The death of a man who fell from a sixth-floor window of an Ocean City hotel has been ruled accidental, police said.
Ocean City Police responded to the Fenwick Inn at 13801 Coastal Highway at 4:08 a.m. March 23 and located the body of Gregory Sean Pierce, 46, in the hotel parking lot. Pierce was pronounced dead at the scene.
Pierce's body was transported to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner of Maryland in Baltimore for an autopsy, where the manner of death was ruled accidental, according to police spokeswoman Jessica Waters. The police department issued a news release identifying Pierce on Tuesday, but didn't elaborate on the circumstances of his death, and declined to make the police report or the autopsy report immediately available.
An obituary for Pierce published Saturday said he lived in Ocean Pines. Funeral services in his memory took place Monday in Gaithersburg, Md., and he was to be buried in Rockville, Md.
The death is the second in a nine-month span at the Fenwick Inn. On June 24, James Robert Cullum, 24, of Middle River, Md., died at Atlantic General Hospital in Berlin shortly after swimming in the hotel's pool. The death was not considered a criminal matter, police said.
There was no lifeguard on duty at the pool -- nor was one required by law, officials said at the time -- where Cullum's friends said they saw him go underwater and fail to resurface after a few minutes.
Hotel manager Greg Fleming said he preferred not to comment on the circumstances of the death, and said he could not yet answer whether the hotel would alter safety precautions in the wake of the fall.
"Obviously, it was a terrible accident," Fleming said.
He said he hoped the two deaths would not dissuade customers from patronizing the hotel.
smuska@dmg.gannett.com
410-213-9442, ext. 14
Ocean City Police responded to the Fenwick Inn at 13801 Coastal Highway at 4:08 a.m. March 23 and located the body of Gregory Sean Pierce, 46, in the hotel parking lot. Pierce was pronounced dead at the scene.
Pierce's body was transported to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner of Maryland in Baltimore for an autopsy, where the manner of death was ruled accidental, according to police spokeswoman Jessica Waters. The police department issued a news release identifying Pierce on Tuesday, but didn't elaborate on the circumstances of his death, and declined to make the police report or the autopsy report immediately available.
An obituary for Pierce published Saturday said he lived in Ocean Pines. Funeral services in his memory took place Monday in Gaithersburg, Md., and he was to be buried in Rockville, Md.
The death is the second in a nine-month span at the Fenwick Inn. On June 24, James Robert Cullum, 24, of Middle River, Md., died at Atlantic General Hospital in Berlin shortly after swimming in the hotel's pool. The death was not considered a criminal matter, police said.
There was no lifeguard on duty at the pool -- nor was one required by law, officials said at the time -- where Cullum's friends said they saw him go underwater and fail to resurface after a few minutes.
Hotel manager Greg Fleming said he preferred not to comment on the circumstances of the death, and said he could not yet answer whether the hotel would alter safety precautions in the wake of the fall.
"Obviously, it was a terrible accident," Fleming said.
He said he hoped the two deaths would not dissuade customers from patronizing the hotel.
smuska@dmg.gannett.com
410-213-9442, ext. 14
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