Most Dangerous Month for Kids and Lawn Mowers

June 21, 2006 — -- Henry Burmester was just 4 years old when his father, Donald, accidentally ran over his foot with a riding lawn mower.

Donald was backing up the mower, and he never saw his son coming as the spinning blade hit the boy's leg and foot.

"I was behind the lawn mower," Henry said. "It backed up. I tried to push it back, but it was too strong. It pushed me down."

"At least my other foot got saved. But my toes -- they're way up in heaven by now."

Henry lost half of his foot, but the worst was yet to come: multiple surgeries and weeks of intensive therapy.

"This is really bad," Henry said. "I had to wake up every night just to get a shot!"

Henry was able to walk again, and in spite of everything, he and his parents realize it could have been much worse.

"Kids die from this," said his mother, Terri Burmester. "They lose their legs up to their knee."

Many lawn-mower accidents are catastrophic -- half of the accidents require amputations of the toes, feet or legs.

Like Henry, 10,000 kids are injured by lawn mowers every year. June is the most dangerous time for kids and lawn mowers.

"The children just don't have an appropriate fear of these power lawn mowers," said Channing Tassom, an emergency medicine specialist. "And with the parent mowing, they can't hear the child running up and so even with it backing up or going forward, the child can end up under the mower."

The Burmesters have triumphed over their tragedy.

The Cedarburg, Wisc., family began a campaign and nonprofit organization called "Know Before You Mow" to alert parents and kids to the danger of lawn mowers. It includes chilling public service announcements that demonstrate how quickly a child can run into trouble with a lawn mower.

Henry also wrote a letter to lawn-mower manufacturers: "Hello, my name is Henry. … I got run over by a lawn-mower. … I do not want this to happen to other kids." He is asking companies to include a key chain on all their lawn mowers with a simple reminder: Know Before You Mow.