Longtime Florida Keys scuba diver and Big Pine Key resident Vernon Siegel's legacy to his sons was a love of the sea.

"Ever since I can remember, we've been diving, trapping and fishing the reef," said Vernon Siegel Jr. "My dad was a diver at heart. He was out there every day. I do the same and I always will."

Vernon Siegel Sr. died late Friday night after his car struck a utility pole on U.S. 1 at Mile Marker 21.3 on Cudjoe Key, according to the Florida Highway Patrol. He was 51.

Siegel was driving southbound in a 2003 Honda when he swerved into the northbound lane, veered out of control and the car skidded on its side into the pole just before midnight, the FHP reported. He was thrown from the vehicle and was pronounced dead at the scene.

The wreck remains under investigation, troopers said.

Siegel Sr. was a 30-year resident of Big Pine Key and an avid tropical fish collector who formerly helped his grandfather run Siegel's Gym, his son said.

But his heart was on the water.

"I was about born and raised in the boat," Siegel Jr. said. "When I was little, my brother, Billy, and I would keep the fish alive on the boat while he was diving."

Siegel Sr. was still recovering from a January 2007 collision in which his 19-foot center console boat struck a channel marker about a mile north of Ohio Key. He had been airlifted to Ryder Trauma Center in Miami with a crushed sternum and other injuries.

"Everyone rallied around him," his son said. "It was a real close call, but he bounced back and said he felt better and stronger than before. He had some vision issues and aches and pains, but nothing unusual after something like that. He doesn't remember being there. It was like he was in a coma."

Siegel Sr. recuperated from those injuries enough to return to diving, and was a regular visitor at the Underseas Inc. dive shop on Big Pine Key.

"He came in almost every day to get his tanks filled," said Maryanne Rockett, a manager of the shop. "He was a hard working guy, a really nice person and one of the best fish collectors out there. He came real close to death a few years ago, but it was courageous watching how he got himself back in shape and back in the ocean. He absolutely loved the ocean."

Rockett, who has been at the dive shop for about 40 years, said Siegel Sr. had been coming there for many of those years.

"He always was telling us stories about what he saw that day in the ocean and what he was excited about," she said.

Funeral services are pending.

alinhardt@keysnews.com