South Carolina Man Dies After Getting Ejected and Trapped By Tractor in Freak Accident
"[He] was mowing grass on his property with his tractor ... when he drove down an embankment and was ejected,” the Cherokee County Coroner said
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An aerial view of the patterns created as a farmer on a tractor bales hay on a field near Hendersonville, North CarolinaA 76-year-old South Carolina man died after accidentally getting trapped by his tractor trailer.
The man — who was identified as Gary Moss — was found by his wife in the backyard of their home “entangled in” his tractor trailer on Monday, Cherokee County Coroner Dennis Fowler said in a statement to the Charlotte Observer.
Fowler said the incident happened around 4:20 p.m. at their home in the 200 block of Pleasant Ridge Road near Blacksburg, which is located about 40 miles southwest of Charlotte, North Carolina.
“Moss was mowing grass on his property with his tractor ... when he drove down an embankment and was ejected,” Fowler said in a news release, per the outlet.
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Fowler added that investigators suspected that he had been towing a Bush Hog, which is a landscaping attachment that can be attached to a farm tractor to cut through thick growth, before he was thrown from the tractor.
“The tractor continued toward Moss, trapping him between it and the Bush Hog attachment. Moss’ wife found her husband entangled in the Ford 1620 tractor and called 9-1-1 for help,” Fowler concluded his statement.
The Ford 1620 tractor measures 84.3 inches in height, 48.4 inches in width and 112.4 inches in length and can weigh up to 2352 lbs., according to tractordata.com, a tractor resource website.
Fowler said an autopsy has been scheduled to determine Moss’ cause of death.
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The coroner’s office did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.
This isn’t the first freak accident involving a tractor to occur this year. In August, 33-year-old Brandy Horner died while watching a tractor pull at the Union County West End Fair in Laurelton, Pennsylvania, according to NBC affiliate WJAC-TV and The Tribune-Democrat.
She was seated while watching the event around 8:30 p.m. local time when she was hit in the neck by a piece of an exhaust wheel that “became dislodged and ejected” from the tractor’s metal covering, according to a press release from Pennsylvania State Police.
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"Through investigation, it was determined that during a tractor pull event, the vehicle being driven sustained an equipment malfunction," police shared about the incident.
Horner was given life-saving measures at the scene and was transported to Evangelical Community Hospital in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, but died less than an hour after the incident, according to the Democrat.
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