COLLOMSVILLE – An elderly man with a history of cardiac issues died of natural causes Sunday afternoon while snowmobiling with a group of friends on a forestry road in Limestone Township, according to Lycoming County Coroner Charles E. Kiessling Jr.

Volunteer firefighters from Nippenose Valley and Elimsport were dispatched to Vandyke Road, about four miles southeast of here, just after 2 p.m. to investigate a reported snowmobile accident, according to Dean Miller, Nippenose Valley fire chief.

“He was with a group of friends. He was operating the second to the last snowmobile and the snowmobiler behind him saw him slump over just before he went off the path,” Miller said he was told.

His body fell out of the snowmobile and struck a tree, Miller said. Authorities did not release his identity other than to say he was a 74-year-old Loyalsock Township resident.

“He was not going very fast at all when the accident occurred,” Miller said.

Once emergency emergency personnel reached him, they began performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation on him.

“A group of five people did chest compressions on him for about 25 minutes, but they never once got a pulse,” Miller said.

“He died doing what he loved. We were told he had snowmobiled for several years,” he added.

Kiessling pronounced the man dead at the scene.