Lawn Mowers: Danger In Your Yard

Susan Koeppen: Injuries Can Be Very Serious, And Are On The Rise

(CBS)  Mowing the lawn is a weekend activity that many homeowners dread.

Not only is mowing time consuming, reports consumer correspondent Susan Koeppen on The Early Show, it can also be downright dangerous.

A new study in the Annals of Emergency Medicine reveals that injuries from lawn mowers are increasing nationwide, and those injuries can be very serious.

Every year, Koeppen said Monday, some 80,000 Americans go to the hospital because of accidents involving lawn mowers. Many of the victims are children and the elderly.

Koeppen spoke with Betty Forsythe, whose grandson, Dylan, lost three fingers and one of his feet to a mower accident. The teary-eyed Duncannon, Pa. woman warned, "Children are fast, children are quick. If you're the parents, the grandparents, if you're watching children, just don't allow them to be in the same area where mowing is done."

"We see (injuries from lawnmowers) every summer; I'm talking big injuries that are devastating," Dr. Scott Kozin of the Shriners Hospitals For Children tells Koeppen.

Kozin is a pediatric hand and foot surgeon who's treated dozens of kids injured by lawn mowers. He says mower accidents are the No. 1 cause of foot amputations in children nationwide: "Either the child is riding on the mower with grandpop or dad and subsequently falls off and has a devastating injury, or they're playing in the yard and the child inadvertently is run over."