A Woodstock High School student-athlete who recently signed a football scholarship fell off an Athens parking deck Sunday morning, police said.
Tyler Bradwell Douthit, 18, an offensive tackle who is headed to Samford University, was found lying at the bottom of the stairs near the entrance to the Washington Street parking garage at about 2:45 a.m. when officers arrived at the scene, an incident report obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution states. Athens-Clarke County police said foul play is not suspected.
The extent of Douthit’s injuries were not disclosed.
A witness told officers that he saw Douthit fall from the fourth floor of the deck and land against the stair railing. Officers said they drove around the deck and did not “locate anyone who saw anything or anything that looked out of the ordinary.”
Douthit was with another person inside the garage just before the fall, a security guard told police. Surveillance footage caught a person running from the deck around the time of the fall but did not show the actual fall, according to the report.
The Woodstock senior signed with Samford during the early signing period in December. In October, he was recognized as the “Scholar Athlete of the Week” by Channel 2 Action News. He later was named to the all-region team and was honored as the school’s Most Valuable Player. Last week, he was named Most Outstanding Senior Athlete.
In a statement to Channel 2, Cherokee County School District Superintendent Dr. Brian V. Hightower said: “We are devastated by the news of Tyler’s injuries. Tyler is an outstanding student-athlete with a huge circle of people who care about him. He and his family are in my prayers.”
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