Shit Hole Motel Doesn't Train Employees

Yarmouth and State Police Investigate Drowning in Resort Pool

YARMOUTH - On Sunday at approximately 11:47 a.m., the Yarmouth Police and Fire Departments were dispatched to the Riverview Resort at 37 Neptune Lane in South Yarmouth for a reported drowning as a subject was observed lying on the bottom of the pool.

Yarmouth Police Patrol Officer Sean Geary and Detective Scott Lundegren were the first to arrive and found bystanders around the pool staring at the victim who was still underwater lying on the pool bottom.

Officers Geary and Lundegren quickly jumped into the pool and removed the victim from the bottom. At this point, Patrol Sergeant Gerard Britt and Patrol Officer Michael Zontini arrived and assisted Officers Geary and Lundegren in getting the victim out of the pool and on to the patio where lifesaving measures began.

Members of the Yarmouth Fire Department arrived and continued advanced lifesaving measures and transported the victim to Cape Cod Hospital in Hyannis where he was unable to be revived and was pronounced deceased.

The victim was subsequently identified as 68-year-old William Butler of Springfield Gardens, New York.

Yarmouth Police Detective Russell Giammarco and Massachusetts State Police detectives assigned to the District Attorney's office are conducting an ongoing investigation.

Media release furnished by Yarmouth Police

Bystanders at resort thought lifeless body was mannequin

By Christine Legere
clegere@capecodonline.com
October 22, 2014

SOUTH YARMOUTH — Guests at the Riverview Resort assumed William Butler was a mannequin when they spotted his lifeless body under several feet of water in the indoor pool Sunday.

"There was a brand new woman working at the hotel desk," Cape and Islands District Attorney Michael O'Keefe said Tuesday. "(Butler) was described to her by other people as a mannequin or dummy lying at the bottom of the pool."

The first two officers on the scene, after the emergency was reported about 11:45 a.m., "found bystanders around the pool staring at the victim who was still underwater, lying on the pool bottom," according to the police report.

Authorities have said they are unsure how long the 68-year-old guest from Springfield Gardens, New York, had been submerged.

Rich Muller, spokesman for Riverview Resorts International, stood by the resort's employees. "Staff responded immediately when they were notified he was in the pool and was unresponsive," Muller said.

O'Keefe said the officers were "close by" and were on the scene shortly after the emergency call. They pulled Butler out of the pool and began CPR, but he could not be resuscitated.

"The medical examiner is still waiting for information to determine whether he'll characterize cause of death as drowning or some medical issue," O'Keefe said. The circumstances of the death are not suspicious, the district attorney added.

The Yarmouth Board of Health has scheduled a public hearing with representatives of the Riverview Resorts on Nov. 17 to discuss management's failure to maintain the state-mandated schedule of water testing at its indoor swimming pool. Yarmouth Health Director Bruce Murphy stressed that failure had no causal connection to Butler's death.
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