
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, February 26, 1995                   TAG: 9502270069
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: LISA APPLEGATE AND KATHY LONA STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

TOT WANDERS OFF, DROWNS

An Elliston toddler died after he wandered away from his father's watch and fell into the frigid waters of the Roanoke River on Saturday afternoon.

Fourteen-month-old Michael Willis Jr. of 1569 Blount Drive had been playing with his older sisters in the yard while their father repaired their mobile home, said Capt. O.P. Ramsey of the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office.

"The father said he saw him on his toy buggy, then two minutes later, he was gone," Ramsey said.

Michael Willis Sr. sent his 8-year-old daughter inside to find her little brother. When he wasn't inside, Ramsey said, they began searching the area.

The family found the toy buggy resting on the riverbank a few hundred feet away from their home and called police.

About 20 minutes later, rescue workers from the Shawsville Rescue Squad and sheriff's office recovered the child's body more than one-half mile downstream. He was taken to Montgomery Regional Hospital.

Ramsey said they were hoping the water temperature, estimated at 30 degrees, could actually save the child by freezing internal organs without damaging them.

But, after doctors spent three hours slowly raising his body temperature, Michael's heart would not function. He was pronounced dead about 5 p.m.

Ramsey said no one saw Michael enter the water. He said the toddler probably pushed his buggy down Blount Drive a short distance to a low concrete bridge, where he fell in.

Keywords:
FATALITY

by CNB