Deputies investigating 2 deaths in Hillsborough

TAMPA -- A resident of the Twin Oaks Mobile Home Park in Ruskin was enjoying morning coffee on her back deck when something floating in a nearby pond caught her eye.

It was a dead body.

The incident is one of two unrelated deaths authorities investigated in Hillsborough County this morning.

Both appear to be accidental, according to sheriff's spokeswoman Debbie Carter, and neither victim's name or age has been released.

The body in the pond was reported at 8:42 a.m. The victim was a year-round resident of the mobile home park at 201 Stephens Road.

"That appears to be a resident that lives there at the mobile home park that apparently had been drinking and is on some prescription medications," Carter said. "It looks like he just wandered into the water and drowned."

Donna Smith, manager of the park, said the pond was shallow enough to walk across. She thinks the man who died was probably on his way to visit a friend on the other side of the pond and he slipped down a small incline.

Residents of the park said the man was well-known and well-liked.

In a second case, reported at 9:38 a.m., officials said a man was killed after being trapped under a lawnmower at Tampa Electric Co.'s Big Bend power station in Apollo Beach. The victim worked for a lawn company contracted by TECO and may have been mowing a sloped area when the accident happened, company spokesman Rick Morera said.

-- Casey Cora and Jan Wesner, Times staff writers