A 75-year-old man fatally drowned Thursday afternoon while mowing his lawn at the edge of the Tennessee River in southern Limestone County, officials said.

According to emergency dispatch reports broadcast about 1:32 p.m., the man, later identified as Larry Garner, was mowing his lawn in the 10000 block of Douglas Drive, which fronts Wheeler Lake, when someone saw both the man and the lawnmower in the river and 911 was called.

“He was found floating in the water,” Limestone County Coroner Mike West said. “… He wasn’t around the tractor. He had floated down a little bit.”

According to West, the man and tractor traveled through the yard, through a fence and over a walkway before entering the water. West said the district attorney requested an autopsy, which Limestone County Sheriff’s Deputy Stephen Young said was ordered to determine if the man had suffered a heart attack or other complications before the drowning.

“It’s not that we don’t believe it was an accident,” Young said. “We’ve also impounded the mower to inspect it as well, just in case there was some kind of malfunction or something.”