3 Youngstowners die in Lake Erie

Officials were trying to determine why the men’s boat capsized.

STAFF/WIRE REPORT

CONNEAUT — Three men died in a boating accident in Lake Erie off Northeast Ohio as U.S. and Canadian searchers rushed to find them, authorities said.

The boat capsized Thursday night about eight miles north of Conneaut, the town near the Pennsylvania border where a truck and boat trailer belonging to the men were later found, Coast Guard officials said.

The Coast Guard identified the victims as Doyle Broomfield, 83; Nathaniel Jackson, 74; and Vincent Dale Mack, 52, all of Youngstown. All three were wearing life jackets.

Coast Guard spokesman Bill Colclough said officials were trying to determine why the 18- to 21-foot skiff capsized.

Mark Weidmann, Coast Guard operation center controller, said the Ohio Department of Natural Resources will be handling the investigation into what caused the accident.

Based on a garbled mayday call, searchers began looking off Canada’s Turkey Point, Colclough said.

Officials later used cell-phone tracking to redirect the search to an area about 50 miles south-southwest near Conneaut.

“We searched with the utmost vigor and vigilance,” Colclough said.

Weidmann said based on the 911 call, they estimate the men were in the water about five hours before rescuers found their bodies.

The lake’s temperature was about 74 degrees Thursday night.

Sgt. Ismael Caraballo, of the Youngstown Police Department, said the YPD was contacted to make a notification on the bodies but they didn’t have much information to go on.