June 26, 2023
Section I
Outdoor Yard Safety
Yard work season is here and for me, lots of happy times spent outdoors. I remember as a youth earning money mowing lawns. The work was fun and the money was happily accepted.
My father was my mower safety coach. Unfortunately, despite good teaching, I still burned myself on the engine by not paying attention to where I was touching. I still spilt gasoline on myself. I still ran over projectile objects in the grass carelessly. Ah, youth.
Both my son and now daughter have been my yard specialists. My son ran a successful lawn mowing business that taught him so many things over the years pre college. He needed the job to stay focused on a work and growth mindset. Yard work provides many of the important life skills for success including attention to detail, resilience and physical activity in nature. Yard work is taxing. That is a good thing when young and growing your skills as an emerging adult. It is rewarding and self esteem building. My daughter has been the yard specialist now for a year plus and learning the same life lessons as my son. The only downside is that it costs me money and I actually love to do the work, minimal downside I would say. The other clients are perfect as they hold a non familial business standard that goes a long way in teaching life skills of human interaction and the attention to detail of a business holder. I encourage parents to nudge their children to become a business developer as a teenager. These are massive life lessons.
Yard work is generally done with machines and there in lies the inherent risk to injury. Machines are great when used properly, injurious often and rarely deadly when not used correctly. My left index finger shows the scars of poor machine use. It is for these reasons that lawn mower and yard machine safety is necessary to prevent major injury that could effect a child's long term health and vitality.
In the United States, 10s of thousands of injuries occur annually from lawn mowers and proportionally more from other yard tools like pressure washers and weedwhackers. That is a lot of preventable injury. North Carolina sees hundreds of thousands of ER visits yearly due to yard related injuries many of which are from mowers.
Amputations and fractures accounted for a smaller percentage of the total injuries noted. While these are the most devastating injuries, others like burn and soft tissue damage are more common. There are clearly a few simple interventions that can dramatically reduce one's risk. While and if your child is in the process of beginning a yard business, or just doing family chores, here are some teaching lessons:
1) Keep all mower deck exit guards in place. The objects that leave the mower are traveling at speeds that could inflict serious damage. The deflector guards are there for a reason, use them. Mower blades spin at over 1000 revolutions per minute causing projectiles to fly out a rapid speeds.
2) Use good quality eye protection especially with weed whackers, blowers and devices that spit stuff out.
3) Wear close toed shoes - preferably boots with thick soles, good traction and a leather outer layer. I can personally tell you that leather boots have saved me a few times from injured feet during weed whacking work.
4) Mow across a slope with a walk behind mower and up and down with a riding mower. Try not to go in reverse when the blades are engaged and spinning. You never know what is behind you that you cannot see.
5) Wear long pants and sleeves to protect against inadvertent flying objects.
6) Wear noise canceling headphones to protect your ears. Lawn mowers hit 100 dB which can seriously damage your ears.
7) Wear sunscreen with SPF 30 or more if you have sun exposed skin for longer than 20 minutes.
8) Drink lots of water on hot days. Dehydration is a real concern working outdoors in the Carolina heat.
9) Practice safe refueling technique and do not inhale the gasoline fumes. Not good for you. Use a funnel and fill the gas tank when the mower is off and cool. It is exceedingly rare, but a hot engine could ignite a gasoline drop that misses its mark.
10) Steer clear of hot mufflers as they will burn.
Mow, earn money and give a teenager a job.
Dr. M
