"God is providing for us"
by Trinity Gruenberg
“The night of the accident I thought there was no way I could ever live there. I didn’t think I could ever handle going back there. Two nights later, I woke up in the middle of the night and something said Stephanie you have to finish this house and live there,” said Stephanie Broughton.
September 7 was a chilly, rainy day and Aaron Broughton, 33, was on a mission to get trenches dug for water lines to the home he was constructing for his family in rural Hewitt. A friend loaned his dad, Lyle, an excavator for the weekend and with the help of his father they were going to get it done, despite the weather.
Stephanie, 31, was out for a walk with their two children, Ladd, 1, and Sylvie who will be four in January, when the incident happened.
“As I was walking back, I heard Lyle yelling and ran to the end of the driveway,” she said.
Stephanie said there was a mound of dirt blocking the site so the kids couldn’t see anything.
Aaron was laying the lines in the trench while Lyle was holding the bucket over him to protect him from the unstable wet sides of the trench. The lines were in and Aaron jumped onto the excavator bucket. He slipped off the excavator and hit his head, presumably on the shovel he was using, killing him instantly.