Dr. Tom Bruns

Bouncing a toddler on granddad’s lap while mowing the grass might seem like an innocent rite of childhood, but careless use of these adult tools can lead to life- and limb-threatening injuries for children, emergency room doctors warn.

“Most injuries are lacerations or soft-tissue injuries from things being shot from underneath the mower,” said Dr. Tom Bruns, an emergency department physician at T.C. Thompson Children’s Hospital at Erlanger. “Or kids slip and their foot goes underneath and the foot and shoes gets chopped up from the lawn mower blade.”

The number of injuries from lawn mower accidents rivals that of all-terrain vehicles, according to local hospital workers.

In 2008, four children suffered full or partial limb amputations at T.C. Thompson’s emergency department after lawn mower injuries. Over the last five years, 15 children have suffered similar fates, records show.

Across the nation, about 200,000 people — about 16,000 of them children — are injured in lawn mower accidents each year, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission reports. Most injuries, such as severed fingers and toes, limb amputations, broken bones, burns and eye injuries, are caused by careless use and can be prevented by following a few simple safety tips, according to the National Academy of Pediatrics.

Dr. Bruns said any injury that results from the mower can be traumatic, because the blades are so sharp and they carry a tremendous amount of bacteria.

In worst-case scenarios, the injuries result in losing a limb, said Marisa Moyers, a registered nurse and pediatric trauma and outreach coordinator for the children’s hospital.

“These injuries are life changing,” Ms. Moyers said. “They require years of treatment and rehabilitation, and then there is the expense.”

Traumatic limb injuries also cause tremendous blood loss, which can be life-threatening, Ms. Moyers said.

“These children come into the emergency department in tremendous shock,” she said.

In addition to injuries from the blade, there is a significant injury risk from the machines overturning. Those can result in crush injuries and broken bones, Ms. Moyers said. Most adult injuries are associated with those types of injuries, data shows.

“All the injuries are traumatic, but with children there is significant trauma for the family,” Dr. Bruns said. “This type of long-term disability impacts the family greatly. There’s a tremendous social stigma associated with growing up with a prosthesis, and then there is a lot of guilt for the family member that might be seen as responsible.”

Dr. Bruns and Ms. Moyers want parents and grandparents to know the dangers before letting children near lawn mowers, even when riding them around with the mower’s blade up.

“That conditions them to not be scared of the lawn mower,” Dr. Bruns said. “They can run up from behind and slip and slide under when the blade is engaged. Or the operator may not know they are in the yard and back the lawn mower over the child.”

The American Academy of Pediatrics says children should be kept indoors while grass is being cut. Children under 16 shouldn’t operate riding lawn mowers, and children under 12 shouldn’t be allowed to operate a push mower, the guidelines indicate.