Less than 24 hours after police cars, fire trucks and ambulances lit up the quiet Brendon Hills neighborhood in Granger, people who live on Glen Arbor Court were still trying to comprehend what happened.
“I think anyone with small children or anyone at all can just imagine a tiny baby like that and how helpless they must have felt. And you kind of wish you would have heard them shout or something,” said Charlotte Wolf, who lives two doors down from the home where the tragedy happened.
St. Joseph County Deputy Coroner Mike McGann ruled 18-month-old Charlotte Cheminiak’s death an accidental drowning. The autopsy on her grandfather, 55-year-old Dave Prentkowski, was completed late Friday afternoon. Deputy Coronoer Mike McBride gave a preliminary cause of death as accidental drowning.
Prentkowski took his granddaughter for a walk Thursday evening, police said, while his wife fixed dinner.
When the two didn't return after a while, she sent their adult son to look for them. He searched the neighborhood and eventually found his father and his niece at the bottom of the pool in the family's back yard. He and a friend pulled both of them out and immediately began CPR, said St. Joseph County Police Lt. Matt Blank.
A friend of the Prentkowskis who stopped by the home Friday morning told WSBT Dave Prentkowski was a quiet man who “enjoyed being on the sidelines” and this is such a tragedy for the family she described as "nice."
News of the double drowning hit the Notre Dame community particularly hard.
“He’ll be missed,” said Jessica Brookshire, associate director for Public Affairs at the University.
Prentkowski served as the Director of Food Services at Notre Dame since 1990, overseeing more than 450 staff members, managers and administrators. He was also very involved in the campus Relay for Life event, serving as a 2012 chair after his own diagnosis with pancreatic cancer last October.
“Dave will never be forgotten at the University of Notre Dame,” said Brookshire, who also coordinates the Notre Dame Relay for Life. “He’s helped too many people and he’s done too many great things.”
“I think our whole neighborhood is really feeling for the family and I hope they make it through alright,” said Wolf.
Prentkowski’s family asked for privacy Friday.
It is still not clear how the two ended up at the bottom of the pool or how long they were there before Prentkowski’s son found them, but police said they might never know.
Neither investigators nor the coroner believe there was any foul play in either death. The coroner noted in his preliminary ruling no other contributing factors could were identified in Prentkowski's death. Formal results from both autopsies will not be available for several weeks.
The investigation is ongoing.
