Man injured in tractor accident; relative dies trying to help

EXETER – An Exeter man was injured Tuesday morning when the tractor he was riding overturned, and a relative died of an apparent heart attack while trying to rescue him.

Alva Curtis, 55, was treated at Mayo Regional Hospital in Dover-Foxcroft for what police were told was a broken leg and internal bleeding. He was later released from the facility, a hospital official said Tuesday night.

Floyd Curtis, 78, a relative who tried to help Curtis, apparently suffered a heart attack at the scene. Paramedics performed CPR, but an official with Sebasticook Valley Hospital in Pittsfield reported that Floyd Curtis died.

Jeanette Black, 57, Exeter town clerk and longtime friend of Floyd Curtis, had heard about an accident in town and also of Curtis’ death, but hadn’t put the two together, she said by telephone from the town office Tuesday afternoon.

Black said she had known Floyd Curtis since she was a girl and that for a long time they had attended the Full Gospel Church of Exeter together. She said Curtis was a good friend.

Pastor Chris Faloon of the Exeter church described Curtis as a great man. He was a dairy farmer and a church leader who was kind and helped people.

“He was liked and respected in the community,” Faloon said by telephone Tuesday night.

Curtis died like he lived, helping another.

The younger Curtis was towing a trailer of hay in a Greenbush Road field about 7:20 a.m. and was going up a hill when the lighter front end of the tractor lifted straight up, throwing Curtis off the tractor, Penobscot County Sheriff’s Deputy James Kennedy, said Tuesday afternoon. Curtis was caught between the tractor and trailer.

The family was haying and Alva and Floyd had showed up early to finish a load of hay by 9 a.m., Kennedy said.