Reducing Lawn Mowing Accidents
One of the leading causes of accidents resulting in serious injury is due to carelessness when using lawn mowers. Thousands of people have to get hospital treatment for things like electrical shocks to loss of fingers or hands.
What are some of the typical causes of these accidents?
Mowers are generally either ridden on, or pushed from behind. And where there are rotating blades of any kind there is potentially the risk of the blade slicing off a limb. Placing fingers near the blade, perhaps in an effort to clear away a clump of grass for instance, is asking for trouble. Many of these accidents happen when the person reaches under the skirt of the mower, or puts the hand into the discharge chute. Before any attempt is made to remove debris the circuit should be cut off so there is no chance of the blades being turned.
It should be remembered that mower blades turn at very fast speeds. It is almost inevitable that the occasional stone will get hit by the blade and be flung at a fast pace. These small objects can hit the operator, or someone else, and can hurt, or even blind someone. It's a good idea to check the portion of grass to be cut before doing the mowing just to see if any obvious objects such as stones can be picked up by hand.
Riding type lawn mowers present their own problems. There is the potential instability with this kind of mower, which may cause it to overturn in certain situations, particularly when mowing steep slopes. The overturned mower can fall on the operator causing injury, or it may lead to contact of the rotating blade with the operator.
What are some of the typical causes of these accidents?
Mowers are generally either ridden on, or pushed from behind. And where there are rotating blades of any kind there is potentially the risk of the blade slicing off a limb. Placing fingers near the blade, perhaps in an effort to clear away a clump of grass for instance, is asking for trouble. Many of these accidents happen when the person reaches under the skirt of the mower, or puts the hand into the discharge chute. Before any attempt is made to remove debris the circuit should be cut off so there is no chance of the blades being turned.
It should be remembered that mower blades turn at very fast speeds. It is almost inevitable that the occasional stone will get hit by the blade and be flung at a fast pace. These small objects can hit the operator, or someone else, and can hurt, or even blind someone. It's a good idea to check the portion of grass to be cut before doing the mowing just to see if any obvious objects such as stones can be picked up by hand.
Riding type lawn mowers present their own problems. There is the potential instability with this kind of mower, which may cause it to overturn in certain situations, particularly when mowing steep slopes. The overturned mower can fall on the operator causing injury, or it may lead to contact of the rotating blade with the operator.
posted by dex at
11:20 am
|
1 comments
