04/14/2026
The environments our customers and drivers work in can be unforgiving. Recently, our customer, Jerry Mattiaccio, was involved in a serious accident and shared what happened:
“In the stories I tell about my adventures in Commercial Beekeeping, this had to be the scariest. We were loading bees in Florida the other night, in the rain, with the wind. I completed the load and ran around the truck on my green machine checking for DOT compliance. The ground heavily saturated already from the rain, gave way near the canal and my green machine rolled on top of me putting me underwater. Marvin, the semi driver, saw what happened and jumped in pulled me out from under the tractor. I was submerged for about 2 minutes desperately trying to find my way up. The only thing that helped me find it were the lights on the Avant which were still working. I had no idea to that point how tall grass underwater can pull you down. I was pulled out and rested on the hill of the berm for a while. The grower warned me about how saturated things were. But being stubborn, I thought it would be all right. This could have ended badly. From now on I will be looking at the weather closer prior to loading. The wind when putting the net down was pretty fierce. Huge thank you to Marvin, the driver, who, despite being warned about alligators in the canal earlier did not hesitate to jump in after me. Marvin works for Vitali's outfit. The green machine is on its way to the shop for maintenance since it will not operate. The mechanic told me on the phone that it quite possibly may be totaled.”
We are incredibly grateful that everyone involved is safe and that no major injuries were caused! A huge thank you to Marvin for his bravery - God bless his soul.
Stay safe out there 🙏🏻
