BELLAIRE -- An elderly Bellaire man died from a head injury sustained in a farming accident on Burrell Road in Antrim County's Kearney Township.
An 84-year-old man was instantly killed around 1:20 p.m. Tuesday when he fell into a saw that was attached to the front of his tractor. He was a longtime farmer in the community and his name is being withheld by authorities, pending notification of family members, said Dave Kopkau, undersheriff in Antrim County.
"He was out working in his yard with a big farm tractor with a buzz rig on it. He was cutting some small branches and for some reason fell into the blade," Kopkau said.
The man was not on the tractor, but working on the ground near the saw. He died of a head injury, Kopkau said.
Emergency responders arrived to find the victim already dead near his tractor, said Chris Dewey, chief of the Bellaire District Fire Department.
The coroner was called to the scene and the man was pronounced dead, he said.
The accident is apt to affect the area's tight-knit farming community, said Stan Moore, director of Antrim County's Michigan State University Extension program.
"There are a lot of producers around here who are multi-generational. It's a small community where people have known each other for a long time," Moore said.
The victim frequently kept himself busy working in the yard and on other projects. The death remains under investigation, Kopkau said.
"The guy worked hard all his life and should have been in a rocking chair on his porch, watching the out-of-state license plates go by," Kopkau said.
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