LA PORTE, Ind. — An 88-year-old Indiana man suffered a fatal heart attack Tuesday after scattering his wifes ashes in a lake and then falling into the water, WSBT reported.
Ralph Miyata fell off a dock into about 7 feet of water at Pine Lake in La Porte around 11 a.m., county Coroner Bob Cutler told the television station. Cutler said the official cause of death was acute myocardial arrest.
James Sprecher, a retired physician who performed CPR on Miyata, said he helped the man out of the boat, and then turned away, WSBT reported. Sprecher said he heard the splash of water as Miyata fell off the dock.
Miyata's wife died in late April, WTHR reported.
"It was not a drowning," Sprecher told the television station. "He was dead when he hit the water.
"He completed his mission, which was putting his wife's ashes into the lake."
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