Joe Imel/Daily News Warren County Sheriff’s Office detectives and deputies investigate the scene of a weather-related death Friday at 376 Kirby-Salmans Road. David Waddell, 25, of 2966 Mount Lebanon Road, Alvaton, was killed when strong winds snapped a large tree that fell on him as he was mowing a neighbor’s yard.

advertisement

Gusty winds toppled a tree that killed a Warren County man who was mowing his neighbors’ yard early Friday afternoon.

David Waddell, 25, of 2966 Mount Lebanon Road, Alvaton, died in what investigators and friends called an unfortunate accident.

Waddell visited the home of John and Gail Matthews at 376 Kirby-Salmans Road in the southern end of the county to mow their lawn, Gail Matthews said.

He visited with the Matthewses for about an hour before climbing onto a riding mower at about 12:30 p.m.

According to the Warren County Sheriff’s Office, Waddell was mulching leaves when a tree fell on him from behind, killing him.

“He hadn’t been (mowing) for five minutes when it happened,” Matthews said.

Waddell, a 2002 graduate of Greenwood High School who was employed at Sumitomo in Scottsville, was pronounced dead at the scene, according to Warren County Deputy Coroner Harold Sanson.

Matthews said that Waddell was one of a group of friends who would visit the home to do yardwork and farming on a neighboring property, and that Waddell was close to the Matthewses’ two sons.

“He’d been like a son to us since he was 14,” Matthews said. “He would borrow our mower to mow his yard, and then he’d come back to do ours. He was always doing something for somebody.”

In the hours after investigators, including the Alvaton Volunteer Fire Department and The Medical Center EMS, left the scene, several neighbors gathered in the garage of the Matthewses’ residence to watch the fallen tree removed and remember Waddell.

Derek Lindsey, a longtime friend, said they often visited John and Gail Matthews to help around the house with odd jobs, and they enjoyed going out on a kayak with friends on a nearby creek.

“We’d been hanging out for years,” Lindsey said. “That couldn’t happen again in a thousand years, that tree falling the way it did.”

The high winds and warm temperatures preceded a cold front bringing rain, though the gusts did little to disrupt utility service.

Gary Dillard, president and CEO of Warren Rural Electric Cooperative Corp., said that a portion of Edmonson County experienced a power outage after a tree severed a power line due to winds, but the problem was remedied early Friday afternoon and power restored within about 30 minutes.

Wind also knocked over a tree in the WRECC parking lot, damaging two employee vehicles, but causing no injuries, Dillard said.

Miles McDaniel, manager of business development and marketing for Bowling Green Municipal Utilities, said that no outages were experienced by BGMU customers Friday due to high winds.