Jeanne Grimes, Staff Writer, jgrimes@chickashanews.com
CHICKASHA —
With temperatures reaching summertime highs, Allen Davis spent four hours Thursday readying the family’s swimming pool for the first dip of the season.
He never imagined the first - and last - one in the water would be Kelly Hammons, a seasonal employee with the City of Chickasha who lost control of his zero-turn mower on an embankment just inside Shannon Springs Park, sending man and mower hurtling down the hill, through Davis’ stockade fence and straight into the pool.
The mishap occurred about 1:30 p.m. and the city had to call out Johnson’s Wrecker for a large crane to pluck the mower from the, by then, murky depths.
Davis deemed his pool a total loss, saying that the impact damaged the pool sides and the spinning mower blades tore the pool liner.
Parks and Recreation Director Wayne Burns said it was an unfortunate accident that could have been much worse.
“He’s very lucky,” Burns said of Hammons, “that he wasn’t injured. He rode it out.”
Lucky, too, was Davis who was able to run out of the mower’s path.
Burns said the new mower is likely ruined.
