Heart attack kills volunteer sandbagger

A man has died of a heart attack after tirelessly volunteering to save properties in St. Laurent from rising water on Lake Manitoba.

The 52-year-old cottager led a group raising several sandbag dikes around homes and cottages on Saturday to help protect the flood-threatened properties.

Mona Sedleski, the deputy reeve of the rural municipality of St. Laurent, said he drove home to Winnipeg because he wasn't feeling well. He suffered a heart attack and died.

Sedleski says the man was a very kind, supportive friend and worked tirelessly for the region.

"We feel very, very bad that it's because of this flood that it has ended his life," she said. "He was 52 years old. That's far, far, far too young."

Volunteers have worked all weekend shoring up and building protective dikes to protect 600 lakefront properties.

Meanwhile, the provincial state of emergency is being extended to June 5 to support the flood fight around the Portage la Prairie area.

The rural municipality of Portage la Prairie has lifted a voluntary evacuation for residents in the controlled release zone, but six mandatory evacuations in that area are still in place, along with 15 others along the Portage Diversion.