My heart goes out to the deceased's family as they struggle with their loss. Greg Misodoulakis was only 18 when he was pinned below his mower that slipped into a water hazard at a local golf club.
Unfortunately, an accident like this is always a possibility, albeit a rare one. The tires on many golf course mowers are smooth and bald, the ground is often slick with dew or water, there's often little room to turn around when making passes close to the steep banks of a water hazard, and the worker is often alone with no one to help. I can even remember an identical accident happening up in Canada when I lived there.
These accidents stick in my craw because I worked on golf courses for 17 years. I remember getting too close to the edge with my mower, dodging golf balls as I tried to finish mowing the green before the onslaught of the day's golfers. Sometimes I wondered what the heck I was even doing out there.
There are so many ways to get injured as a groundskeeper, you sometimes take it all for granted when nobody gets hurt. We loved our job for the most part but, until a tragedy like this happens, we are usually unaware of how dangerous it can be.
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