Been there, heard that

We've all been there: After a long week of work trying to save the world, a beautiful weekend is upon us, but we can't start enjoying it until we've completed a handful of household chores. During times like these, we sometimes forget all those safety practices everyone harps about in the workplace, and I'm no exception.

As a 34-year-old, selected-reserve lieutenant commander, I've attended every safety stand-down, I've read every ground-mishap report, and I've wondered how anyone could make so many dumb mistakes. Now, though, I'm sitting here wondering how I could have become just another victim.

One Saturday morning after my family and I had moved into a new house in an established neighborhood, I awoke, played with my baby daughter a while, then headed outside to do some yardwork. We had lived in an apartment for the past two years, so I had to work on my lawn mower before I could start my tasks. I filled it with oil, put new gas in it, and installed a new blade. I then found an old pair of shoes and removed one of the shoelaces so I could tie off the safety handle. I wanted to be able to move around the yard without my mower shutting down. I also took off my good tennis shoes and put on an old pair I had reserved for this kind of work.

I mowed the front yard and both sides, leaving what I couldn't mow safely for a weed eater (you see, I'm always safety conscious). When I moved to the backyard, which is nearly flat, I suddenly realized an old pear tree had dropped hundreds of pears on the ground. Some still were hard; others were rotten. I remember thinking, "I should rake those up, but I've not unpacked the rake yet, so I'll wait until the next time."

With only four or five more passes to go, I came upon an outdoor fire pit, which was surrounded by bricks. I already was making plans for the rest of my afternoon as I whipped around the pit, and that's when it happened. My old sneakers, with little or no tread, met with one of the rotten pears. I was pulling the mower as I walked backward, so, as I slipped, my feet went forward, and the mower's momentum carried it toward me.

OK, now that everyone is done cringing, here comes the "lesson" part.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

My first mistake was not surveying the area I was mowing. If I had seen the pears earlier, I probably would have opted to rake them up before trying to mow.

Another mistake was my choice of working apparel. How many times have we heard a supervisor talk about PPE? The tennis shoes I was wearing were sitting next to a pair of steel-toed boots with Vibram soles made to protect against slipping. They're very warm hunting boots, but they would have been even more valuable to me this day.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

My next error was allowing my mind to wander. For seven summers while growing up, I mowed up to 30 yards per week, and I never had a mishap. Why now? As a young man, I didn't have many responsibilities; I only had to worry about myself, and I had time to waste. Now, I have pressure at work, a wife and daughter to consider, and my time is valuable to me. I can't recall what I was thinking before the mishap, but I know I was daydreaming. Though experience is a factor in reducing mishaps, the fact we've done something hundreds of times doesn't make the task any less dangerous. Mowing the grass involves a rotating, cutting blade that moves very closely to our feet. The lawn mower was dangerous when it was invented, it was dangerous last month, and it's dangerous today.

I know everyone is awaiting the results of my last mistake. Well, the worst never happened. I'm not sure why, but I decided not to use the shoestring to override the safety handle. I recognized that mowing over pears was hazardous, but I can't say that's what kept me from making such a mistake. Because I was squeezing the handle with my hands when I lost my grip on the mower (after it already had hit my foot), it shut down. If it had kept running, I would have suffered much more damage.

To my delight, the mower blade only cut through the toe of my shoe, catching my big toe under the toenail. It sliced the toe, removed the nail, and hit the tip of the bone. During an hour in surgery, an orthopedic surgeon removed a tiny section of bone and the nail bed, cleaned everything, and pulled the skin from the bottom of my toe to meet the area where the bottom of my nail was. The result was a big toe that is about an eighth-inch shorter than the other one, and I'll never have a toenail again. I missed a week of work and hobbled around for more than a month, wearing a special shoe, but I consider myself extremely lucky.

In today's world, we all use equipment that has made our jobs easier. We also need to keep in mind that no matter how many times we use that equipment, hazards still exist, and if we don't follow procedures, we're going to fall victim to progress.

Resources:

* Lawn Mower Safety, http://www.aap.org/family/tipplawn.htm

* Lawnmower Safety Tips, http://www.safetycenter.navy.mil/articles/a-m/lawnmower.htm