Family warns of the danger of working for lake weed removal companies after 2nd death in 2 years
ELKO NEW MARKET, Minn. — On the day one family buried their child, there were painful memories for another family. Both their children drowned at their summer jobs.
"It speaks more to this not being a freak accident, and my heart goes out to them because unfortunately, we know exactly what they're going through," Bill Aune said.
Bill and his wife, Dina, lost their son Brady on June 3, 2022.
"He was the best kid, we loved him so much. He was always there for other people. He was always the kid doing two backflips off the cliff," Bill said.
It was that love of adventure that Bill says drew his son to a summer job with Dive Guys, a lake weed removal company, in the summer of 2022.
"They kind of advertised it as a good summer job, get in shape, bond with other guys, work outside," he said.
The 20-year-old planned to follow in his father's footsteps and become a Minneapolis firefighter.
"He was very nurturing and calming with people so he would have been a very caring firefighter," Dina said.
When he got the job, his parents assumed he would be scuba-certified.
"We said, 'Brady, you're not certified yet, they'll have you working on the shore if you get this job until you get certified, but then won't it be great because we're certified, and we could go on trips together.' It was supposed to be a beautiful thing," she said.
But Brady's fourth day on the job turned out to be his last. While clearing weeds out of Lake Minnetonka, he went underwater and never resurfaced.
"We thought he would be safe. We never thought he would be in over his head as far as he was unsupervised," she said.
According to an open OSHA investigation, Dive Guys didn't have a standby diver that day, the dive team members weren't trained in first aid or CPR, and they were improperly trained to use the equipment.
"Had they, would have saw that his weight belt was too heavy for his body size and was on inside out," she said.
Brady's parents are fighting for more regulations for lake weed removal companies.
"If they can pay kids like Brady $16 an hour to do things that's an extreme risk, they'll just keep doing it. They don't care," Bill said.
Their plea is to anyone considering doing it, to think twice.
"We want to warn young boys out there looking for a summer job and parents, it's not safe. It won't be safe. And it's not worth their life," Dina said.
OSHA fined Dive Guys nearly $130,000 for six different violations. WCCO reached out to Dive Guys and asked if they've made any safety changes since Brady's death, but have not heard back.
Joe Anderson, the Bethel University student who died a few weeks ago doing the same job in Apple Valley worked for a different company. OSHA is investigating that company too.
