Summer Safety: Kids and Lawnmowers

Learn how to avoid lawnmower mistakes that can lead to accidents.

ByABC News via logo
June 23, 2010, 1:51 PM

June 24, 2010 — -- The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission estimates that about 37,000 kids and adults go to the emergency room every year because of some sort of lawnmower accident.

This morning we want to focus on one of the worst hazards: riding lawnmowers that keep cutting while going in reverse, when the driver can't see people -- especially children -- behind the machine.

Asthon Loyd was one parent who received one of the phone calls no parent ever wants to answer.

"Ashton, there's been a terrible accident. Your dad backed over Preston with the lawnmower."

Darren Malone's son Shane fell victim to a similar accident.

"I thought I was the strongest man in the world and could handle anything," Darren Malone said. "But I crumbled like a dry leaf that day."

Two families forever changed, all in the lightning speed turn of a lawnmower blade. Four-year-old Preston Loyd was playing when his grandfather accidentally backed over him with a lawnmower, while riding backwards.

"I just try not to ever go to why," Preston's father said.

It was touch and go for 32 days and several surgeries, but Preston survived.

Eight-year-old Shane Malone didn't.

"You couldn't ask for a better child," the boy's father said.

Darren Malone said Shane knew to stay away from lawnmowers but believes he must have been chasing a frog or lizard the day he ended up behind the mower.

"I put it in reverse, and I heard the noise. When I pulled the mower off the top of him, I wasn't prepared for what I seen," Shane's father said.

Darren Malone now has one mission that keeps him going.

"They're going to come up with some kind of sensor to shut that motor off if it senses anything there," he said. "Because my son could be alive today if it was for that."

All riding lawnmowers manufactured after September 2004 have a "no mow in reverse" safety feature that prohibits the blades from cutting while the mower is in reverse.

But millions of older mowers don't have that safety feature. And even the setting on the newer mowers can be disabled.

For more tips on lawnmower safety, click to visit these resources: