Fingers and toes in the front line

Press, 12 November 1981, Page 19

Fingers and toes in the front line

More than 100 fingers and over 50 toes: that is the grisly annual toll of human digits lost as a result of motor mower accidents in this country. .As well, there is a staggering list of lacerations to hands, feet, arms, and legs: severe injuries to eyes; and fractures, bums, and wounds to various parts of the body. Hundreds of victims are slashed, mangled, or struck down by missiles year after year. “The Accident Compensation Corporation expects to file close to a thousand claims for injuries involving motor mowers this year alone,” says the organisation’s managing director, Mr J. L. Fahy. “And, of course, there will be countless minor accidents which will not come to our attention.

“Unfortunately, statistics mean little to most of us and we take the attitude that motor mower accidents are freak mishaps. But they are far from that.” Annual figures compiled by the Health Department show that well over 100 people are admitted to public hospitals as a result of motor mower accidents, and a significant percentage are children under 10 years of age. “Children who shouldn’t be within cooee of these potential killers,” comments Mr Fahy. One of the victims was a toddler of just 14 months. His father did not see him playing under the backyard boundary hedge as he hurried to complete his Saturday morning chore. The result: lacerations to a buttock necessitating 37 days in hospital. It could have been much worse. Another man thought his four-year-old son was playing elsewhere when he began mowing his lawn with a borrowed mower. As he made a swathe through the overgrown lawn, he lit a cigarette with one hand, felt a hump, and looked down to see a foot sticking out from under the blade housing. It was his son’s.

“Usually people aren’t downright careless,” Mr Fahy says. “They do check the grass before mowing to make sure there are not any toys or other potential missiles that might be launched by the blade. They don’t allow children to be around while they’re mowing, and they are mindful of the hidden hazards to themselves.” But that was not the case for the handyman who started mowing and noticed that the machine was not cutting low enough. He reached down to change the adjustable wheel height without bothering to turn off the engine. In sticking his hand underneath the mower to apply more leverage, his two middle fingers were put in the path of the blade: the fingertips were severely mangled. And it was not the case for the 13-year-old girl who was allowed to earn a dollar by mowing an elderly neighbour’s lawn. The gain of one dollar was traumatically offset by the loss of her right index finger. Nor was it the case for a man who learned a painful lesson while pushing his mower up a grassy slope. He slipped and fell, thrusting his left leg under the housing of

his rotary mower. The blade sliced through hi's sandshoe and cut all five toes from his foot. Young or old. male or female, the users of motor mowers persistently under

estimate the dangers of the machine. “A lawn mower is such a simple thing that we just don’t think about it." says Mr Fahy, “but underneath the housing of a rotary mower is a blade that moves at ‘shear’ speeds of more

than 300 kilometres an hour. “Perhaps, people who were used to cutting their lawns with hand mowers have now accepted the convenience of the motor mower, but without fully appreciating the

difference in power or potential for danger. “That might explain, also, why so many children are foolishly allowed to use such machines. Dad mowed the lawn when he was a boy; so why shouldn't little Johnny?"