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As the days get longer and hotter and as the grass starts to grow, more people will be taking out their mowers and cutting their lawns. However, it is easy to forget just how dangerous mowers can be. Every year, farm equipment, including mowers are responsible for thousands of injuries, many to children.

The injury rate with mowers (riding mowers in particular) is very high, with 663,000 people needing medical attention due to mower injuries between 1996 and 2004, and with an average injury rate among owners of riding mowers of 2.6 injuries per 1,000 users. It is important to remember that most people, on average over the course of a year, use their mowers only once or twice each month. This means that, per use, mowers are far more dangerous than many other kinds of products, including cars and even guns.

Injuries caused by lawnmowers can be very serious. Many injuries are the result of people being exposed to the whirling mower blades. These blades, designed to cut grass, can also efficiently cut humans, and can result in the loss of fingers, toes, and even entire limbs. Some people suffer eye injuries and blunt trauma when debris, such as rocks and sticks, is shot out of the mower's discharge chute at 170 miles per hour; others are burned on exposed engine parts and mower decks, which can get very hot when a mower is in use.

Today's family farm in Nebraska is as likely as not to cover 2,000 acres, with increasingly expensive and sophisticated equipment doing much of the work. In cases involving defective design or dangerous modifications to any of the machinery, serious or fatal accidents can result. These include traumatic amputation, head injuries, back injuries, multiple fractures, asphyxiation, or exposure to toxic levels of dangerous herbicides and pesticides.

Most farm machines have crush points, pinch points, cutting edges, or rotary drives that too often are unshielded. In a long day's work, it can sometimes be easy to forget that they're even running. Any loose clothing, strap, or belt can trap a farmer or farm worker into a dangerous machine with disastrous results. Emergency shutoff features frequently don't work in time to avoid the loss of a limb or even worse injuries.

In the Courts
Many suggestions have been made to increase mower safety, including a reduction in the top speed that a mower can travel while going in reverse and a reduction in the amount of time that it takes the blades to stop spinning from five seconds to three seconds. Some have pushed for improved warnings, for moving the override switch to the back of the mower so that the operator would have to look behind him if he wanted to use it, or even for the complete elimination of the no mow in reverse override. To date, the mower industry has resisted all of these changes, and the government has failed to act to increase mower safety.

If you have been injured by a lawnmower, you might have a products liability suit against the manufacturer and others. Products liability suits tend to be complex: The defendant usually fights such claims very vigorously, because even one successful claim could open the door to hundreds or thousands of other claims.

At the Demerath Law Office, our objective is to recover as much money for you as possible under the facts and the applicable law. As a native Nebraskan with 35 years of personal injury litigation experience, Nebraska personal injury lawyer Larry Demerath has a solid understanding of the risks of farm work and the dangers inherent in defective or poorly designed equipment. For a free consultation about your case, contact the Demerath Law Office.

Larry R. Demerath, a personal injury lawyer in Omaha, Nebraska, has dedicated his law practice to helping people who have suffered damages at the hands of others, in the state of Nebraska, recover monetary compensation. For more information, please visit a personal injury lawyer in Omaha, Nebraska.