Mowers imperil kids

One of the most dangerous threats to a child may be parked in your tool shed, sitting in the garage or out on the back patio.

As Utahns attempt to tackle the great outdoors with their lawn mower, many unknowingly put children — and even themselves — at risk for injury.

The results can be tragic.

On May 26, panic set in after Enoch Police Cpl. Karl Callison recognized the address paramedics talked about over the radio.

It grew when he heard the family's 3-year-old boy suffered a lawn mower-related amputation.

"The 3-year-old used to play with my kid," he said.

Callison arrived first on the scene. He went to the backyard and found the mother cradling the boy in her arms and a bloodied towel wrapped around his foot. The riding lawn mower was parked nearby.

Doctors treated more than 230,000 people — approximately 20,000 of them children under age 19 — for lawn mower-related injuries across the nation in 2004, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Emergency room staffs treated 325 Utahns for similar injuries from 2000 to 2004, an average of 65 each year, the Utah Department of Health reports.

Earlier that day, Callison said, the boy played as his grandfather mowed the lawn. The grandfather reached a point where he needed to back up, and he didn't know the boy was behind him.

"Kids move fast," Callison said. "The (boy) was on the opposite side of the yard when the grandfather last saw him."

Others arrived on the scene, and an adult probation officer held compression on the child's leg as Callison removed the towel. To his shock, the leg was severed at the ball of the foot.

"That was my first glance at how bad it was," he said.

Callison wrapped the foot with gauze and paramedics rushed the boy to Valley View Medical Center, then to Dixie Regional Medical Center. The grandfather found three of the boy's toes in the grass, but doctors said the foot suffered too much damage to have the appendages reattached. Instead, they used a skin graft to wrap his foot. They plan to make a special prosthetic to help him walk again.

Dr. L. Scott Levin, president of the American Society of Reconstructive Microsurgery, said the lawn mower is one of the most dangerous tools around the home, causing thousands of debilitating injuries each year.