An eighth grade student from Springfield, Massachusetts, died Wednesday after a drowning incident at High Meadow Day Camp in Granby, Connecticut, prompting a police investigation and a wave of grief from the student’s school district. High Meadow identified the boy Thursday as 14-year-old Emari Marshall-Woodard.
Granby police said they got the call about 2:27 p.m. from the camp at 311 North Granby Rd. A Simsbury police officer working a private detail at the facility went to the pool area and began treating the boy, and Granby Ambulance took him to Connecticut Children’s Medical Center. He died Wednesday evening.
Springfield Public Schools said one of its students was taken away in an ambulance on Wednesday and later said it was grieving the loss of one of its students after a school field trip. Dr. Sonia Dinall said counselors and support staff were being made available to students and staff who may need help in the days and weeks ahead. Numerous children who witnessed the incident later became emotionally distressed.
Multiple Connecticut schools were on field trips at the camp when the emergency unfolded, and ambulance crews from Granby, Windsor Locks, Simsbury and Suffield helped with the response. The camp described the event as a medical emergency in the pool, but the state medical examiner’s office said the cause of death is still pending further studies.
The death leaves investigators with the central question that matters most now: what led the boy into trouble in the water. Police said the incident remains under investigation, and the medical examiner’s final determination will be the next official answer.
