Temperatures were in the 90s – and he’s in his 80s – but Robert Landers isn’t the type to let a hot summer day stop him from getting the job done.
“I’ve always been a fella who’s got to be doing something,” he said.
That being the case, it was no surprise to find him outside in the midday heat a few weeks ago weed-eating the steep bank near his home off Highway 411. The surprise that day was reserved for a passerby.
“There’s two steep parts that I can’t run over with the mower, so I have to weed-eat it,” Robert said. “Everybody tells me I’ve got no business being on that bank weed-eating, especially since I’ll be 83 in November.”
“I was headed toward Madisonville, and as I was coming up the highway, I noticed a riding lawnmower on the side of the road with nobody on it,” said Brent Greene, a service technician from Prisma Health Home Equipment Services who was on his usual route heading toward Madisonville. “As I got closer, I saw a gentleman lying face down on the ground. I didn’t know exactly what he was doing, but I saw a weed-eater lying beside him,” Brent said.
“I was coming off the bank and I got really dizzy and lightheaded,” Robert said. “Boy, everything just went white. I was trying to get to my mower, which was down there beside me, but I didn’t make it. I fell in the ditch there and skinned my face up. This fella was coming down the road and he saw me laying there.”
“I made a U-turn,” Brent said. “By the time I got back to him, he was rolling onto his back and trying to get up. I pulled up beside him and helped him sit up.”
“He asked me how I was. I saw it was a Prisma Health van, and I thought I couldn’t be any luckier than that,” Robert said.
After a few minutes – and an ice-cold bottle of water Brent happened to have in his van – Robert insisted on getting up on his feet and getting back to his mower. “My weed-eater was laying there, and I saw my wife up at the top of the hill – she’d brought me some iced tea out there and was waiting for me to come up,” Robert said. “That fella was so nice. He said, ‘Go on and ride your mower up there, I’ll bring your weed-eater.’ He's just such a super nice guy. He was around at the right time. Boy, that water couldn’t have been any better. I guess I just got dehydrated and got too hot. I’m not what I used to be,” he said with a laugh.
“We are in the business of helping people,” Brent said. “I’ve been a volunteer firefighter since 1992, so it’s kind of in my nature to help people. I feel like everybody should be that way. If you see somebody on the side of the road, you need to stop. I just did something that anybody should’ve done,” he explained.
Robert says he’s being more careful now, drinking more water and taking better care of himself. He says the cooler temperatures have helped, too. But, even after falling, he was undeterred.
“I came back through 2-3 hours later and I’ll be danged if he wasn’t out there weed-eating the other side of the bank,” Brent laughed. “He’s like my dad – he’s hard-headed, too.”
“I knew I had that other side of the bank,” Robert said. “I knew I didn’t want to leave that one side looking bad. I was a little bit weak, but I went back at it that evening and finished it up.”
