INDIAN RIVER COUNTY — A landscape worker was flown to a trauma center after the tractor he was operating overturned, leaving him trapped underneath the heavy machinery.
Sheriff’s Cpl. Michael Dilks said he responded to the scene about 1:30 p.m. Wednesday in the 900 block of 43rd Avenue Southwest, just south of Vero Beach and near the 43rd Avenue and Oslo Road intersection.
He saw the tractor flipped on its side with the man trapped underneath.
About 10 people ran over to the tractor and lifted it while Dilks and another person pulled the man from underneath, he said. The man was treated by emergency medical services at the scene and then flown to Lawnwood Regional Medical Center & Heart Institute in Fort Pierce.
His condition was unknown, Dilks said.
The man was using the tractor to pick up palm trees and load them into a pickup truck, said his co-worker Ronald Adderly. Adderly, who works for Premier Landscaping Solutions, said he didn’t see the accident.
But, he was several feet away around the corner raking up brush when he saw people running back and forth near the intersection. When Adderly ran around the corner, he saw a group of people already at the overturned tractor.
Adderly, 22, of Vero Beach, said he has known the injured man for a couple months and said he’s a hard working, good guy.
Co-worker Jorge Rodriguez, 36, of Vero Beach, said he thinks the injured man turned the front tires in the wrong direction, causing them to twist and flip the tractor on its side. The official cause of the accident and further details on the man have not been released.