Umatilla fisherman, 44, becomes state’s 5th lightning death in 2018

Jeffrey J. Mayor knew where to find the “big ones” in Lake Owen, said a neighbor who found him dead Wednesday of a lightning strike, slumped over in a pontoon boat on the lake northwest of Umatilla in Lake County.

Moyer, who came to Florida from Nevada to fish three months ago, was maybe more familiar with the lake’s best fishing spots than the Sunshine State’s reputation as the nation’s deadliest place for lightning, said R.G. Champion, 75.

“The neighbors all heard it,” Champion said Thursday of the thunder blast lightning flash.

Moyer, 44, died from electrocution from a lightning strike while docked after fishing, according to a spokeswoman for the District 5 Medical Examiner’s Office, which serves Citrus, Hernando, Lake, Marion and Sumter counties.

His death was the fifth blamed on lightning in Florida this year and the eighth in the nation, according to the National Weather Service in Melbourne, which tracks fatal lightning strikes. It occurred during National Lightning Safety Awareness Week, an observance started by the National Lightning Safety Council in 2001. that followed the

“Lightning can strike 10 miles from the rain area in a thunderstorm. If you hear thunder, you need to get to a safe place immediately,” according to the council’s website, which describes lightning as “an underrated killer.”

Although Moyer’s death was reported to the Lake County Sheriff ’s Office about 6:30 p.m., National Weather Service radar showed a thunderstorm with lightning strikes in the area of the lake about 2 p.m., forecaster Will Ulrich said.

Florida averages 1.17 million cloud-to-ground lightning strikes per year, second in the nation to Texas.

According to a sheriff’s report, Champion was planning to fish off his dock around 6 p.m. when he glanced at Moyer’s dock and noticed him slumped over in his boat. Another neighbor discovered Moyer was not breathing.

Deputies said Moyer lived in the area for a few months out of the year “strictly for fishing.”

Neighbors noticed he was fishing before the storm hit, the sheriff ’s report said.

Florida lightning also was blamed this month for a beachgoer’s death on Siesta Beach and a man who was weed-whacking in Margate.