Adm Collins was struck by a driver very early on the morning of  7/29/2010.  It was an accident.  Details are in the St Peterburg Times article here.

I spent a few days with RDML Collins in Oct, 1988.  The USS CARR (FFG-52), at the request of the Tampa Navy League, of which ADM Collins was one of the major voices, had asked for a ship visit for Navy week.  In 2007, I chronicled that meeting, as well as with CAPT Bruce McDaniels, USN (Ret).

The port visit to Tampa was wonderful, and I was amazed at the people who would stand in the sun for 2-3 hours to take a tour of the ship.  The community, led by the Navy League and ADM Collins did it up right for us.

When we left Tampa, to return to Charleston, ADM Collins and CAPT McDaniel sailed with us as guests.  I gave up my stateroom (which I was just barely betting used to, as I had just relied LCDR Tom Brown as XO while in Tampa, so those two retired officers had a place while we sailed the Florida Strait to Ft Lauderdale, where they would debark.

The two retired officers spent the few days all over the ship, meeting the crew and seeing our gas turbine engineering plant, which was just about 5 years old then.  I’m sure ADM Collins nuclear Navy background caused so much time to be spent below decks.

Those two guests were happy to be a minimal burden on the crew and the Wardroom.  They were great o have aboard.

One of them is now gone.  I should probably look up CAPT McDaniels and buy him a cup of coffee.