Fanning Springs man dies trying to swim across the Suwannee River

By Carrie A. Mizell

Just before 4 a.m. on Saturday morning the Dixie County Sheriff’s Office received a call about a 23-year-old man who had gone missing while trying to swim across the Suwannee River.
Michael J. Seymour had reportedly jumped into the river with a group of friends near Joe Anderson Park in Dixie County just before he disappeared beneath the water.
According to witnesses some of the individuals involved swam across the river and back before noticing that Seymour was no longer visible. After searching for him, the group called the Dixie County Sheriff’s Office and asked for assistance.
Major Scott Harden of the Dixie County Sheriff’s Office indicated that deputies who first arrived on scene requested divers be dispatched to the riverside. By 8 a.m. Saturday morning additional dive team members from the Dixie County Sheriff’s Office and Dixie County Emergency Services were called in to aid with the ongoing search effort. At 3:22 p.m. divers discovered what is believed to be Seymour’s body near mid-river, just south of the Joe Anderson Park dock. The body has since been transported to the Medical Examiner’s Office in Gainesville for an autopsy to determine Seymour’s cause of death.