Elected Florida Keys Mosquito Control District commissioner dies in bicycle accident
A Florida Keys Mosquito Control District commissioner died Thursday from injuries that he sustained in a bicycle crash while vacationing with his family in Tennessee, the district and a family friend said.
Tom McDonald, 77, was critically injured and hospitalized after falling off his bicycle on Friday, Nov. 3, said his longtime friend, Nick Mulick, a Monroe County Republican Party member who was appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis to serve on the board of the Florida Keys Aqueduct Authority in 2021.
Doctors removed McDonald from life support Thursday night, Mulick said.
“It was a blessing to have known him,” he said. “He was a gifted family man and public official.”
McDonald was first elected to the Mosquito Control District board in 1995 and served his first term through 1998, said the district’s spokesman, Chad Huff.
He ran successfully again in 2015 and had represented District 5 on the board since then, Huff said.
“[The Mosquito Control District] offers heartfelt condolences to Commissioner McDonald’s family and friends and deeply appreciates his dedicated service to the district, its Board and the Citizens of Monroe County,” the district said in a statement released Friday.
