Alexis Mason
Alexis Mason was 3 when she almost lost her leg to the blades of a riding lawn mower. Her parents and hospital care team weighed the possibility of amputation, a persistent limp, painful complications with skin grafts and myriad other issues. She was discharged after a month, having escaped the worst consequences, and went on to participate in multiple sports in school. But events of that fateful day influenced Mason’s career path, and highlight the dangers of small children near lawn mowers.
Read Alexis’ Story at the Telling the Story Project website, a collaboration of three agricultural safety centers funded by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). The project’s stories weave injury prevention messages into first-hand accounts of farmers and others impacted by agricultural trauma incidents.
“It all worked out in the end, because this interaction with medicine is how I knew I wanted to become a doctor,” said Mason, now a physician practicing in her home state of Alabama.
Nearly 10,000 child/youth lawn mower injuries occur in the United States annually, with approximately 5 percent resulting in amputation. Despite improvements in engineering and safety features, pediatric lawn mower-related injury rates have remained constant over the past 40 years. Injuries also include lacerations, burns and eye injuries. On farms, mowing is often the first job involving machinery that is assigned to young people.
Mason offers this piece of lawn mower safety advice, speaking from experience: “Keep children away from the mowing area, and teach them that lawn mowers are not toys.”
MOWER SAFETY RESOURCES
The Childhood Agricultural Safety Network’s mower campaign website contains fact sheets and posters for both youth and adults. Both sets of materials include illustrations of key safety topics covering supervision, personal protective equipment, appropriate shoes, child bystanders and debris in the grass. Resources are also available in Spanish.
Among mower safety strategies on the Childhood Agricultural Safety Network website:
- The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children be at least 12 years old to operate push-style lawn mower and 16 to operate a riding mower.
- Never let a second person ride or jump on a mower.
- Always wear sturdy, closed-toed shoes. Do not mow in sandals or with bare feet.
- Before mowing, scan the lawn to remove toys, hoses, tools and large rocks as they could become projectiles.
- Keep children out of the mowing area.
- Stay alert to others entering the mowing area.
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