MUDDY CREEK TWP — A 70-year-old Allegheny County man out fishing on Lake Arthur died Saturday morning after an apparent heart attack, authorities said.

Joel D. Strum of Plum was with his lifelong fishing buddy on a boat about 9:30 a.m. when he suffered the fatal medical emergency, said Butler County Deputy Coroner Dennis Trzeciak.

“They were only in the lake for about half an hour when it happened,” Trzeciak said.

Strum’s friend, Jerry Donahue of Irwin, Westmoreland County, steered the boat back to shore at the Bear Run boat launch and called authorities.

Harmony EMS and Moraine State Park rangers responded but by then it was too late to save Strum.

Trzeciak pronounced him dead at the scene at 10:15 a.m. The cause of death is listed as heart disease.

“He had a history of heart problems and previously had open heart surgery,” Trzeciak said.

Investigators noted that Strum was dependent on a portable oxygen machine and had it with him on the boat Saturday.

“We’ve been fishing together since high school,” Donahue said.

But since they attended different high schools — Donahue went to Penn Hills and Strum went to Peabody — their friendship happened by chance.

Strum’s father owned a barber shop in the old Universal shopping center in Penn Hills. At that same plaza, Donahue in 1960 worked part-time after school at Bard’s Dairyland.

“It was similar to Isaly’s,” Donahue said of Dairyland. “I was a soda jerk.”

Strum on occasion while stopping for a visit at his dad’s shop would walk over to the Dairyland for a bite to eat.

“That’s how we crossed paths,” Donahue said. “We started talking and we became friends.”

Their friendship held fast after both got married and had families of their own.

Fishing was one of their favorite shared pastimes.

“We fished many places,” Donahue said. “We started fishing Lake Arthur together about four years ago.

“Fishing there now’s not going to be the same.”