{"id":397317,"date":"2026-09-11T22:20:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-11T22:20:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/397317\/"},"modified":"2026-09-11T22:20:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-11T22:20:10","slug":"72-year-old-florida-man-dies-in-watts-bar-reservoir-boating-accident","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/397317\/","title":{"rendered":"72-year-old Florida man dies in Watts Bar Reservoir boating accident"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>CROSSVILLE, Tenn. \u2014 A 72-year-old Florida man is dead after falling overboard on a pontoon boat at Sand Island on Watts Bar Reservoir Friday, according to Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency (TWRA).<\/p>\n<p>TWRA said Stephen Mason of Homosassa, Florida was boating with his wife and friends when he fell into the water and suffered bodily injuries.<\/p>\n<p>He was not wearing a life jacket, according to the TWRA.<\/p>\n<p>TWRA game wardens, along with the Rhea and Meigs County sheriff\u2019s offices, emergency medical services and volunteer agencies, responded to a 911 call shortly after 2 p.m.<\/p>\n<p>Mason died at the scene, according to the TWRA.<\/p>\n<p>Mason\u2019s death is the 16th boating-related fatality in Tennessee in 2026, according to TWRA.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CROSSVILLE, Tenn. \u2014 A 72-year-old Florida man is dead after falling overboard on a pontoon boat at Sand&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":397318,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-397317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=397317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397317\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/397318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}