Calera man dies after suffering cardiac event on Lake Martin

Published 4:32 pm Monday, August 10, 2015

Tallapoosa County Deputy Coroner Ken Cowart said that James Michael Harrell was pronounced dead at 3:35 p.m. after being rushed to Lake Martin Community Hospital.

Harrell was with his wife and two friends in a remote cove in an area south of Young’s Island, between DARE Park and Smith Mountain.

Witnesses said he had been swimming when he began to struggle in the water. The friends managed to get him close to shore and tried to revive him. Boaters came to his aid and tried to resuscitate the man using CPR.

“They were struggling just to keep him out of the water and said they have been trying to revive him for about 10 minutes when we came into the cove,” Sydney Sneed said. “I swam over and started compressions. The pulse would come and go. We tried and tried, but I knew we had to get him to the boat so we could get him some help.”

Other boaters including Virgil Roberts arrived and with everyone working together, they managed to get Harrell onto a boat and then rushed him to DARE Park where emergency personnel met them and transported him to Lake Martin Community Hospital.

Despite the efforts of sheriff’s deputies, paramedics and others, Harrell was pronounced dead at about 4 p.m.

Cowart said all signs point to a massive heart attack.

“We feel like that was what it was, but they will do some tests just to make sure,” Cowart said. “Our thoughts and prayers are with the family, especially in a case where so many people tried so hard to save him like that.”

Tragedy on Lake Martin is not a new thing to the Harrell Family. On June 28, 2013, the Harrell’s lost their 30-year-old son Henry Adam Harrell when a personal watercraft he was driving struck a dock on Sturdivant Creek in the Lake Hill Estates area of Lake Martin, just north of the U.S. Highway 280 bridge off the Tallapoosa River.

Harrell is survived by his wife Daphne, his son Heath Harrell (Hillary) of Deatsville and numerous others.

More details will be released as they become available.