Amputations and Lacerations: Your Front

Amputations and Lacerations: Your Front Lawn may be a Jungle

The accident typically happens on a spring or summer weekend, mostly to men, and the results are often severe: lacerations, fractures and even amputations.

From 2006 to 2013, an estimated 51,151 people were injured while mowing the lawn, and 12,243 of them aroused losing a part.

In a study published within the journal Public Health Reports, researchers tracked the injuries using a federal database of ER visits. Most of the damage was to the hands and feet, the scientists found.

Almost half involved lacerations, and about 22 percent resulted in an amputation.

Eye and face injuries accounted for 1 percent of ER visits, and fractures for 22.4 percent.

quite 200 people suffered burns from lawnmowers serious enough to be treated in an E.R.

About 85 percent of the injured went home after being treated, while the remainder stayed within the

hospital or visited another facility — a home for rehabilitation, for instance, or a short-term hospital.

Those who were immediately hospitalized stayed a mean of two days, but about 600 of them needed home medical care after they were discharged.

And the tag for all this landscaping mayhem? the typical ER visit cost $2,482, and therefore the average charge for hospitalization was $36,987 per patient.

The researchers estimate that altogether, mower injuries cost a touch quite $36 million a year.

Children under age 4 were more likely than older people to injure their feet and to suffer an

amputation.

supported their own experiences, the authors suggested that these injuries occur when a toddler approaches a loved one who is mowing the lawn, or once they fall off the lap of an individual driving a power mower.

Dr. Deborah Schwengel, a professor of anesthesiology at Johns Hopkins University and lead author of the study said that while there are fewer injuries to children, they tend to be more severe.

“We’ve learned that well-meaning adults aren't conscious of the danger which kids finish up with amputation of a whole foot or a part of a leg,” she said.

Older children and adults sometimes stick their hands into a mower, despite the whirring blades, to clear debris.

The solution, Dr. Schwengel said, is safer equipment: “We’re working with university engineering departments and our hope is to make lawnmowers that is smart enough so that nobody gets their foot or hand chopped off.”