A southwest Iowa farmer was killed in a tractor accident Monday afternoon. Accident investigator Mark Burbridge, with the Pottawattamie County Sheriff’s Department, says 71-year-old William Brich, of rural Neola, died when his tractor got too close to a ditch and rolled down an embankment into a creek.

Burbridge says the tractor was pulling a flatbed trailer hauling brush. The load was hauled up to an area to be dumped near a creek when Brich likely backed too close to the drop-off point. The tractor slid into the ditch and tumbled, ending up in the creek. The accident happened around 3:45 P.M. on Brich’s property.

Burbridge says the man was found on the embankment and apparently was hit by the tractor as he was tossed off.

By Ric Hanson, KJAN, Atlantic