Tampa man, 63, drowns fetching water for plants

TAMPA -- The body of a 63-year-old man was pulled from a pond near an apartment complex Monday, Hillsborough County sheriff's officials said.

Witnesses told deputies the unidentified man was partaking in a daily routine of filling a bucket with pond water to fortify the plants kept at his apartment inside the Sterling Lakes complex, 1385 Sand Lake Circle. That was about 7 p.m. Monday.

"For some reason, the individual fell into the water and he drowned," sheriff's spokesman J.D. Callaway said.

His body was recovered from the pond about an hour later.

-- Casey Cora, Times staff writer