A co-owner of a Lebanon County-based landscaping firm was killed Saturday in an accident at Alden Place in Cornwall Borough.
Ralph Schreiber, 66, was the co-owner of Schreiber Lawn & Landscape Maintenance, based in West Cornwall Township.
According to Cornwall Borough Police, Schreiber was operating a zero-turn lawn mower around noon on Saturday to cut grass at Alden Place when the machinery slid into a creek and subsequently overturned, immobilizing Schreiber. He was pronounced dead at the scene by Lebanon County Coroner Dr. Jeffrey Yocum.
Police state that the exact time of the accident is unknown; the call for assistance was received at 12:22pm Saturday after an employee of Schreiber’s firm began searching for his boss and identified the lawn mower in the creek.
Cornwall Borough Police Chief Bruce Harris noted that Cornwall, Quentin, and Mount Gretna Fire Companies assisted at the scene, along with First Aid & Safety Patrol EMS. The lawn mower was subsequently removed from the creek with a wrecker.
The precise location of the accident was not identified in the release, but County land records show several marked creek lines in the area, including Snitz Creek, which runs through the site.
Alden Place is the former site of the Robert Percy Alden Estate (a relation to the Coleman family) and later the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union Center.
According to his company biography, Schreiber was a 1971 graduate of Cedar Crest High School, after which he matriculated to Delaware Valley College, where he majored in ornamental horticulture. Lebanon Countians may have known Schreiber through his years managing Royer’s Flowers in Lebanon.
Scrhreiber co-owned his eponymous landscaping firm with son, Andrew, also a Cedar Crest graduate and experienced groundskeeper. “Words cannot express how much he was loved by all,” said Andrew in a post to the firm’s Facebook page. “I miss him (in) the worst possible way already.”
“He will always be my hero and I will strive to be as kind hearted of a person as he was.”