It sounded like a branch going under a lawn mower, but it was a man’s arm.
“We heard the chomping of the blades,” said Jeff Gardella, who was golfing at the Omni Interlocken Golf Club, 800 Eldorado Blvd., in Broomfield when a man fell off a lawn mower and was run over Monday.
“Then we heard him screaming,” Gardella said.
Gardella, the dean of students and golf coach at Valor Christian High School, ran to the man to perform first aid. Witnesses say Gardella may have saved the landscaping worker’s life.
“It was the most horrific and saddening thing I have seen in my life,” said Sean Kavanaugh, who was golfing with Gardella at the time of the accident. “I can’t imagine what would have happened if Jeff would not have been there.”
Gardella, his 13-year-old son and two adult friends were about to tee off when he noticed a man riding a lawn mower down a hill about 25 yards behind him.
“All of a sudden he falls off the mower” headfirst over the front, Gardella said. “He rolled several times and the lawn mower kept coming down the hill after him.”
Arm was cut off
Just as the man stopped rolling, he looked up and saw the lawn mower was upon him. He lifted up his arm to stop the machine, but it rolled over the arm, cutting it off.
“We heard a noise,” Gardella said. “You knew it wasn’t good.”
Gardella ran over to the man. It looked at first like he was caught under the mower. The man pulled himself away from the mower and was kneeling in agony, he said.
The man’s shirt was shredded, his right arm was missing just above the elbow, and he had gaping wounds on his back and stomach. Blood was squirting from his arm.
Gardella’s mind raced with thoughts about what he should do. He ran back to his golf cart to get a rag to stop blood from gushing from the man’s arm. But he remembered his rags were filthy.
Gardella ran back to the man and told him to raise what was left of his arm above his head.
He ran back to his golf bag and grabbed towels given to participants of the Denver Broncos Alumni Golf Tournament.
“I wrapped the towel around his stub and applied direct pressure to his artery,” Gardella said.
The man, who was lying down, had a terrified look on his face, Gardella said.
“I wouldn’t let him look at his wounds,” he said. “I didn’t want him to go into shock.”
Meantime, a woman found what remained of the man’s arm and put it in a trash bag with ice.
Paramedics arrived in about five minutes and rushed the man to Denver Health Medical Center.
“A valiant effort”
Wendy Forbes, a spokeswoman for North Metro Fire Rescue, said that several bystanders helped the accident victim.
“It was a valiant effort,” she said.
Forbes said she could not release the victim’s name and did not know his current condition.
The man worked for Navarro Landscaping of Las Vegas. A woman named Pat, who said she was the company’s manager for the Denver area, said all that she had learned was that the employee was in surgery.
“Our main concern is for the family,” said Pat, who declined to give her last name. Pat said she does not know the name of the company’s employee who was injured.
Occupational Safety and Health Administration officials are investigating the accident.
Staff writer Kirk Mitchell can be reached at 303-954-1206 or kmitchell@denverpost.com.
