Local man dies after tragic tractor accident
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A local businessman died Monday morning after his tractor rolled over his legs and pinned him in a field in Safford for more than nine hours on Sunday.
Daniel Patrick Lee, 32, was found around 4:30 p.m. Sunday evening when 9-year-old Kade Whitmer rode down east Relation Street on a bike and discovered Lee underneath a tractor he had been using to rake hay. According to Lee’s father-in-law, Bill Kempton, Lee was fighting off a swarm of bees that were attacking him and jumped from the tractor, only to fall and be pinned up to his hips by the left rear wheel of the tractor.
“His cell phone was in his front pants pocket and was buried against the ground, so he couldn’t call for help,” Kempton said.
Rescuers arrived on the scene after the call went out at 4:44 p.m. and used a backhoe they chained to the tractor to pull the heavy machinery off Lee. Paramedics and firefighters coordinated the rescue effort while triaging Lee at the scene, hydrating him and checking his vital signs.
Once freed, Lee was airlifted to University Medical Center in Tucson and arrived lucid enough to talk to doctors and family members.
Kempton said even in Lee’s final hours, the quality of his character showed through.
“The hospital staff mentioned he was very polite,” he said. “He was a great guy, well-liked.”
Kempton said Lee was lucid right up until he was sedated for exploratory surgery early this morning. Kempton traveled to Tucson with Lee’s wife of 11 years, Danielle, and other family members.
Kempton said he died due to toxins that had saturated his body and forced his kidneys and heart to fail.
University Medical Center spokesperson Loretta McKenzie confirmed Lee’s death, which Kempton said was around 4 a.m.
“Had he been rescued in the first hour, he probably could have survived,” Kempton said, “but he had been there so long.”
Kempton said Lee was out in the field raking hay for his business Brier-Lee Custom Hay Inc. Lee bought the business from longtime owners Tom and Paul Brierley in June of 2004, according to Tom’s wife, Nancy.
“He worked for us a couple of summers ago,” Nancy Brierley said. “He kept saying he wanted to come back to the Valley and to farming.”
Lee, who was raised in Benson, worked on farms most of his life, Kempton said. He had taken a job in door manufacturing in Phoenix before returning to the Gila Valley to work for and then take over Brierley’s hay business, Nancy said.
“He really liked what he was doing, and he really tried hard,” Nancy said.
Contact Adam Gaub at 428-2560, ext. 240, or e-mail him at adam@eacourier.com.
