Something as small as a rock can become deadlier than a bullet from a 357 Magnum when shot from a lawnmower.
In the Weeds
A Guide to Mower Safety
By Allen P. Roberts Jr.
In an unprecedented move, Tesla Inc. announced its releasing a new, solar-powered, all-electric and fully automated line of mowers, called the“ E-Lawn Mowers.” Get it?“ E-Lawn Mowers?” Just like dad jokes, mowing is not for the faint-hearted. All joking aside, June was National Safety Month and, according to the U. S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, somewhere around 90,000 people, including close to 10,000 children, are injured each year thanks to lawn mowers.
A popular study from 2021 points to the seriousness of mowing injuries; citing an average of 84,944 injuries per year from 2015-2021, with the most commonly injured body parts being hands or fingers( 22.3 %), followed by a leg or flip-flop clad foot( 16.2 %).
The most common injury was lacerations( 23.1 %), followed by sprain / strain( 18.8 %) with the average age of those injured being 46.5 years, and here’ s a shocker: men were more than three times as likely to be injured as women. Patients presenting to the Emergency Department after a mowing accident were far more likely to be discharged home after treatment( 90.5 %) than to be admitted( 8.5 %).
Now, this article is not about vicious, blood-thirsty mowers that are coming for your kids, but a study of pediatric patients in one St. Louis hospital from 2022 found that 75 % of mower accidents involving kids were boys, while 84 % presented with injuries to the lower extremity, 40 % experienced at least one amputation while 13 % required a prosthetic after the injury.
Any object in the yard( stones, sticks or sprinkler heads) can become instant projectiles when struck by a mower blade. There’ s even a MythBusters where they
36 AcreageLife July 2024 AcreageLife. com