Kentucky state Sen. Johnnie Turner dies after plunging into empty swimming pool on lawn mower

P_P@lemm.ee to politics @lemmy.world – 348 points –
Kentucky state Sen. Johnnie Turner dies after plunging into empty swimming pool on lawn mower
cbsnews.com
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The article I read recognized him for his contributions to the coal industry lobby and expanding horse betting. A real go-getter.

"He spent his life uplifting others... He was open minded to new initiatives"

Sounds like it

Since the article decided it wasn’t worth mentioning—as if it wasn’t obvious by the fact he was a republican—he was also full heartedly participating in the witch hunt against trans kids, and also the slow destruction of public libraries.

May his grave be a gender neutral toilet for many years to come. 🙏

Why would it be worth mentioning? A person died. A medic had to climb down there and determine he was dead. He then had to climb out and tell the family that he was dead. The fire department then had to retrieve the body. The police had to write a report about what they saw on scene. A family is grieving now.

The guy was an asshole and bad person. But he was a human. Being a republican or democrat has nothing to do with death. Be a sensitive human and respect death.

He was doing his damnedest to make life unlivable for trans people, I hope he’s rotting in hell. If you want to be treated respectfully in death, don’t be a piece of shit in life.

Btw, he wasn’t found dead. It took him a while to die as the accident was a month ago. If you’re going to make up a story to try to make this dead shithead more sympathetic you could at least read the article.

I’d think being a sensitive human involves thinking of those whose lives he turned upside down and terrorized for the sake of politics, and not just going “but he wasn’t an actual monster living in a cave and had a family đŸ„ș”

Like, did he turn democrat last minute before he hit the concrete teeth first? Or you mean that he was republican the entire time and now he's fucking dead so nobody give a shit he's dead and no longer republican?

Not sure if I’m correctly understanding what part of my comment you’re confused by, but I’m saying that it’s unsurprising that he is a transphobe who hates libraries because he was a republican. Past tense because he’s dead now.

Just wanted you to say it again 😁 that's all. đŸ€” Does that mean one less evil vote?

To any Republicans reading these comments and are "shocked" that we're glad he's gone... You will not be respected if you do not act respectably. You will be judged for your actions and you will not be missed.

"I have never wished death upon another human. I have, however, read many obituaries with a great deal of satisfaction."

I need not tolerate those who want me dead. The only people who think that's a paradox are fundamentally terrible people.

at 76 with a reasonable amount of wealth under his belt, I'm surprised he was even mowing his own lawn

"Now why would anybody do drugs when you can just mow a lawn?" - Hank Hill

On one hand, yep.

On the other, I usually blaze one before I start on my yardwork / landscaping.

Getting high and driving slowly in circles is the best. I miss my riding mower but do not miss having a yard that required one.

I bet, but I've only got a 1/4 acre, so I just push mow. Still makes a relatively relaxing task even better, though lol.

Is this how he ended up in a pool? Lol

tbh, my first thought was “oh that’s terrible” and my second thought was “maybe he was drunk?”. It’s also possible he had some kind of medical emergency and couldn’t stop for some reason.

I think for some people it's like a form of meditation, especially for those with a big lawn and a riding mower. I don't personally get it, but that's the vibe these guys give off.

For others it is a means of escaping their family for an hour or so.

My wife's parents have a decent plot of land and always go out for a mow when they're bored of us. I guess it's better than staring at their phones.

I hate the time it takes. I'm HIGHLY allergic to grass and wear near hazmat level protection.

But it requires many different skill sets including driving. This is what makes it enjoyable. The challenge to get the best look, or the most efficient mow.

Plus instant gratification. Each line looks good as you turn and come back on the next pass. And when you're done, the whole thing looks 100% better so you get a big o'l dopamine push with your self gratification.

ok so there's mowers you actually ride,... this makes a lot more sense

Not just ride, that doesn't encompass the relationship properly. It's nearly a sport or art form really. A man and his mower.

There's a skill to not just driving, but you also control the speed of the blade, the direction of the cut, your lines. You need to control the speed so you get a good cut, which means dropping gears when you run thicker patches. You can also adjust the height of the deck (the part the blades are attached to), the speed of the blade. There are different kinds of blades to attach and you need to change them depending on the task or season. Also the blades need sharpening, so you need to pay for that or learn to sharpen (and balance) the blades. Then you use all of those skills to perfectly navigate diverse and uneven terrain to achieve the best possible look for your yard (once you decide if you are mowing for street looks or mowing for views from the house).

And that's just cutting grass with a basic model. There are so many vehicle options that the equipment alone can be a huge part of riding mower life. You can have a basic no-name with two small blades that rattles your teeth while you hold on for your life wishing you had better hearing protection. Or maybe a nearly silent electric zero turn where you steer with levers and are practically sitting in a reclining chair with a built in insulated cup beer holder. And there's everything in-between.

Mowing life is weird.

this is amazing. The US fascinates me from an anthropological stand point

It fascinates us as well. The diversity is pretty insane when you stop to think about it. And every different place has their own things that everyone else thinks is strange.

I’ve never heard of anyone not just setting the deck depth, putting the throttling to max, engaging the blades and proceeding to mow. Nothing about what you said seems at all like anything anyone realistically cares or worries about. Whether a push mower, small riding mower, zero turn, or sub compact tractor; it’s all essentially the same. Nobody is changing blades out by the season. Someone that cares will probably sharpen their blades at the end of the mowing season but that takes about as much learning as washing the dishes. It was like reading a cosplay about lawn mowing from someone that has never mowed before.

And I can tell you either don't mow much or your lawn looks like shit.

Gotta thatch once spring rains stop, special blade. In the height of summer when the grass is growing inches every week, you need a high lift blade so you can attach a bagger. Fall brings & early spring brings on a mulching blade.

If you don't sharpen your blade you get jagged brown tops and your blade isn't staying sharp all season long.

Maybe get some real life experience before commenting.

I mow plenty, everything gets mulched. I do adjust the deck height so the lawn is 4 1/4 inches tall in the summer and work it shorter by half an inch a cut until it’s under 3 inches on my last mowing. You can try gate keeping lawn mowing to be consistent with whatever fairly tail you got yourself committed to telling but that doesn’t make it real.

Gatekeeping?

Man I'm just here providing some insight to a culture that other people aren't exposed to on a daily basis. I literally get paid to get people excited about mowers. You're the one rolling up being a dick for no reason.

All of the products exist for reasons. Features have reasons. If everyone just sat on their mower and went full send then there wouldn't be multiple speed settings in the first place.

If you wanna vanilla out the experience for yourself, you should very much do as you please. But don't try to play off that any of my information was incorrect just because your mowing is basic.

I didn't get it until I lived it myself. It's a whole thing. Felt like a King of the Hill skit when the neighbors rolled up my 3rd weekend. We were all out doing the same thing so they came to say hello. Just three guys out sitting on riding mowers in the front lawn chatting and drinking beers in the early afternoon while we all take a quick break from our solitude. It's probably the most relaxing chore that still requires a lot of physical labor. And you feel good about completing it.

Although if I wasn't renting, all this grass would be gone in favor of plant diversity. American lawn culture is strange.

That makes sense. I also totally get you on the last point. As soon as I manage to own a house, the yard is getting planted with local flora, fruit bushes, and a vegetable garden.

“riding mower
still requires a lot of physical labor” rofl

This post caught me off guard when I first read it, I had to scroll up and see if it was the same person that wrote all that ridiculous shit nobody actually does while mowing and sure enough it was. Using anything other than a push mower doesn’t require a lot of physical labor, that’s just absurd. The most physical labor I’ve ever exerted other than a push mower was probably my tractor but that’s just because it’s old as shit and doesn’t have a hydrostatic transmission.

If you think mowing is just riding on the mower then you probably haven't had to tend property that many of these mowers were designed for. You also have to deal with a trailer full of cuttings, and run a string trimmer.

Considering I sell hundreds of mowers a year, rebuild and repair them, and sell the accessories.... I can say that I talk to many people who would agree with everything I said.

Sure, some of my customers are like you. They don't care what their property looks like. They do the bare minimum to keep from getting fines from the city. But that's not the culture where I'm at.

Even more amazing: weeding. Some people go into the zone out there pulling weeds. To me it was always torture -- mental and physical.

I get it. We can easily afford someone to come mow our lawn but that’s quiet me time that I need so I’d much rather do it myself.

Quiet? On a motorized lawn mower?

My noise cancelling headphones work great and my mower’s electric. It’s not loud at all.

But I’m mostly saying “quiet” to mean being away from other people

Had a friend and his wife move in with us for a short time as they were moving to our city for a new job. They offered to help with chores and whatnot around the house, and he specifically mentioned he could help with yard work. I told him in no uncertain terms that that was my "me time" and he was to never intrude on that again. He chuckled knowingly.

Yup, I had a friend crash with us for a bit to get back on his feet and I had the exact same convo with him. Nah dawg, you can do the dishes
 yards mine.

Electric is the future. They also don't rattle your body like a gas mower does. I'm not sure why this isn't used more as a selling feature.

Lots of people love maintaining a yard or garden. It’s not work to them. It’s a hobby.

100% agree. I love putting on headphones and mowing my lawn. Somehow it's relaxing. Shoveling snow, different story...

as a kentucky resident he won't be missed. he has been an active part of making the state worse.

I'm having a really hard time imagining how such an accident was unavoidable.

Isn't it normally code to have a fence around a pool? So even if he had a medical episode while riding a lawnmower, surely a fence would have stopped the mower.

I have to imagine that he refused to have a fence around his pool because big government can't tell him what to do, so perhaps this death is from hubris.

It's very likely a requirement to have a fence which would prevent people from outside your property accessing the pool, but not a fence right at the edge of an in-ground pool (which this must have been for a riding lawnmower to plunge into it).

Some states, cities and counties have laws that require a perimeter fence around the pool to keep little kids safe. And as I recall, the fence usually can’t be your yard fence. It has to be a separate fence with a self-closing and self-latching door.

Also, Larry David https://youtu.be/mstWOTSEVg4

And even if local laws don’t require it, insurance companies may still charge you out the ass if you don’t have it and keep the gate shut at all times.

Pretty sure this guy wasn't staying up at night wondering if he would be able to afford his higher insurance rate.

Depends on local laws. But many places require a fence specifically for the pool area 4-5 ft, self locking gates, etc. Not a property line fence.

I think those codes depend on the state and it may depend if it is empty or if a child lives with you but even if there were a fence, they are normally pretty flimsy and meant to keep young children from getting in unsupervised. A ride on lawnmower is going to tear though one super easily.

These are the people in charge of running the country...

“Accidents” happen. (I used to be a medic, and I firmly believe there is no such thing as a true “accident”.) If you look at the whole scene, you can find the point on the timeline up to the “accident” where the patient got stupid. And then I had to be there.

And yes, drunk mowing is a real thing. I had to overturn a riding lawnmower once to look for a bit of finger. But the two fatalities involving lawnmowers I did, had no alcohol involved—just stupidity was all that was required.

I firmly believe there is no such thing as a true “accident”

I've been teaching my kids that "accidents happen because either someone did do something they shouldn't have or they didn't do something they should have, and it's important to learn from accidents and near-accidents to avoid them in the future"

It's incredible the number of adults I encounter who lack this wisdom and just shake off accidents as random chance without seeing the choices that led to them

Keep pounding it into them. The second most worst thing I had to do as a medic was hand out teddy bears to injured and sick children. I hated those calls.

***A Teddy Bear is perhaps the greatest medical device ever invented for treating a sick or injured child on scene. A shout out and all Blessings to our local motorcycle club for donating Teddy Bears to us by the case. They eased a lot of fear and pain.

It’s why I refuse to use the word and instead say incident.

Another EMT here. The vast majority of the time it happens because of two mistakes, people almost never get seriously injured because of one thing, it is usually "I disabled or ignored this one safety step, then I got distracted for a second at the wrong time" or something similar. Could be alcohol, could be laziness, could be pressure to finish something for a boss that doesn't care.

Safety is typically defense in depth, and one failure isn't enough to cause a major issue.

Tho, there are MAJOR exceptions.

In aviation, this is called an “error chain.” It’s one of the concepts taught in ground school. Human error is a frequent element of accidents, so there is a focus on training pilots to find & fix mistakes early to “break” the “error chain” and prevent disaster.

Oh I agree, those are generally the base errors. People are stupid and do a lot of stupid things and disable safety devices or ignore safety protocols. I can remember scraping 4 fingers out of a 40 ton punch press with a putty knife, (it was handy), at an industrial accident with a putty knife. He had wired a safety latch back. Both of the lawnmower fatalities were caused by operating a heavy riding mower going across a steep side hill. The mowers rolled and crushed and suffocated the operators.

As a medic, I made my living dealing with everyone else's stupid actions.

Fire Department Chronicles pretty much underlines exactly this. Emergency situations caused by some level of stupidity. Often no communication, bad supervision or training, some stunt, or just extremely poor judgement leading up to whatever happened that caused the call in the first place.

Coal industry, horse racing... some people are just determined to make the world a slightly worse place.

Also, how can one be "aboard" a lawn mower?

Driving lawn mower. Staple for houses with acreage.

indeed... they look like mini tractors, insane

https://www.qualityequip.com/webres/File/CMG/E160.jpg

Never realized it, but in hindsight it's so obvious. Of course riding mowers are not common outside of the US.

Of course riding mowers are not common outside of the US.

North America really, they're everywhere in Canada as well

They even make mini tractors for those with acreage too. Handy for attaching different attachments to as needed, but obviously only necessary if there's enough land to require it

coming soon: GOP legislation to block requirement of "don't drive it into a pool" warning stickers on lawn mowers

What a hilarious way to go out. Darwin Award nomination incoming

How drunk was he mowing the lawn?

Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to step off the lawn mower. Do you know why I stopped you?

That has happened more than once in real life.......

A bottle of shite (I meant to write "white" but I won't correct that) wine and a few Oxys, presumably.

A new American version of "fell out of a window"?

Did he offend his Russian keepers?

I am not sure if this is true or not, but in the memory of Republican Senator Turner, I'm going to spread around anyways!

To future historians: this is a reference to the contemporary political figure “JD Vance” who argued he was justified in spreading lies because it served his political purposes.

How do you "plunge" into an empty pool? Wonder if it was a mulching mower.

There are definitions of plunge that don't involve water. One can plunge their hand into their pocket, for example.

they'll be immediately replaced by a maga.

There were more respectful ways to word that headline but none more click-baity.

He doesn't deserve respect. He lived and died a piece of shit; we don't need to give him special treatment now that he's dead.

Yes, we have to remember that this is a tragedy. A lawnmower and a pool were damaged.