Lawn-sense
So yesterday I mowed a lawn for the first time. My dad always used a landscaper when I was younger, so I never had the chance to use a lawnmower. For those of you out there who are like me in this regard, I share some important lessons with you in today’s blog entry. Others may simply find my inexperience with lawn mowing to be amusing.
“Wait!,” you say. “This is a medical site, not a home improvement site.” True, but were you aware that a lawn mower is one of the most dangerous pieces of equipment in the home and causes thousands of serious injuries each year. For example, in 1990, there were 87,000 visits to the Emergency Room due to lawn mower-related injuries. What kind of injuries are we talking about? How about chopped off fingers and toes, loss of vision, broken bones, and severe burns? That’s pretty serious stuff.
Here were some of my mistakes yesterday that I immediately plan to correct. First, I did not use gloves. As a result, since I couldn’t figure out how to pour the gas in the mower without spilling a bunch of it all over the place, my hands were saturated with gasoline. Not only does it smell bad, but it was quite uncomfortable.
The second mistake was not wearing protective glasses. Luckily, nothing bad happened to me, but debris could easily have flown out of the mower and hit me in the eyes. To that end, I also should have worn pants and shoes (not shorts and sneakers) to protect my feet and legs from flying debris.
The grass was pretty long and the machine kept jamming on me because of this. As a result, I had to clear numerous blade jams. I made sure the machine was off when I cleared the jams, but next time plan to use a paint stick instead of my fingers to do this because you never know what can happen.
The one thing I did right was clear the yard of whatever debris I could find such as large sticks or rocks. If this stuff hits the blades, watch out! This is why children should not be nearby when you mow. Well, that’s about all for now. Feel free to write in to the blog with your mower safety tips or stories.
“Wait!,” you say. “This is a medical site, not a home improvement site.” True, but were you aware that a lawn mower is one of the most dangerous pieces of equipment in the home and causes thousands of serious injuries each year. For example, in 1990, there were 87,000 visits to the Emergency Room due to lawn mower-related injuries. What kind of injuries are we talking about? How about chopped off fingers and toes, loss of vision, broken bones, and severe burns? That’s pretty serious stuff.
Here were some of my mistakes yesterday that I immediately plan to correct. First, I did not use gloves. As a result, since I couldn’t figure out how to pour the gas in the mower without spilling a bunch of it all over the place, my hands were saturated with gasoline. Not only does it smell bad, but it was quite uncomfortable.
The second mistake was not wearing protective glasses. Luckily, nothing bad happened to me, but debris could easily have flown out of the mower and hit me in the eyes. To that end, I also should have worn pants and shoes (not shorts and sneakers) to protect my feet and legs from flying debris.
The grass was pretty long and the machine kept jamming on me because of this. As a result, I had to clear numerous blade jams. I made sure the machine was off when I cleared the jams, but next time plan to use a paint stick instead of my fingers to do this because you never know what can happen.
The one thing I did right was clear the yard of whatever debris I could find such as large sticks or rocks. If this stuff hits the blades, watch out! This is why children should not be nearby when you mow. Well, that’s about all for now. Feel free to write in to the blog with your mower safety tips or stories.
posted by MedFriendly | 9:44 PM
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