According to the coroner’s office, Swadener drowned and suffered blunt force trauma to his chest.
He was pronounced dead at Miami Valley Hospital not long after he was taken from the water at Bass Lake Camp Ground, on Hilliard Street, and flown to the hospital by CareFlight.
Swadener was last seen at about 10 a.m. Wednesday on the other side of the property, where he had been working with another piece of equipment, Clark County sheriff’s Sgt. Chad Brown said.
Three men discovered the mower, overturned in the water, just after 5 p.m. They hooked up a chain to a pick-up truck to flip the mower, they said.
“He could have been there five minutes or five hours - we don’t know,” Brown said Wednesday night.
About the Author