April 05, 2007
A guest at Painter’s Tavern who suffered a serious head injury on Monday night when he fell from a second-floor fire escape has died.
Chuck O’Connor, of Miami, Florida, was in Cornwall-on-Hudson to participate in a bartender’s workshop run by a local company, Ardent Spirits. According to village police chief Charles Williams, whose department conducted an investigation, O’Connor told friends he was going to his room and when he didn’t re-appear, they started to look for him. Eventually, they found O’Connor unconscious on the ground behind Painter’s inn and restaurant and called 911 shortly before 10 p.m.
“No one saw what happened, “ Williams said, ” but apparently he was on the fire escape and may have been trying to get to the roof.” Williams added that there were no signs of any struggle and no reason to suspect foul play.
“If we thought anything was going on, we would have launched a criminal investigation,” Williams said.
Police investigators reported that O’Connor, who was transported to Westchester Medical Center, sustained a severe head trauma. Friends of the victim said that laboratory tests showed that his blood-alcohol level was below the legal limit and that alcohol did not appear to play a role in the accident. Earlier, witnesses told police that O'Connor had appeared intoxicated before he went to his room.
Gary Regan, who runs Ardent Spirits, a world-renown company offering bartenders state-of-the-art instruction, and owners of Painters Tavern, which hosted the workshop, expressed their heart-felt sympathies for this “tragic accident.” Regan also noted that an autopsy will be performed on the deceased.
Comments:
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Chuck was an old friend, and I learned of this 10 years after. I would love to know what the commenter thinks really happened.
posted by David Evans on 02/23/17 at 12:20 PM
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