We managed thirty-three patients who had open injuries of the foot
related to the use of a lawn mower from 1985 through 1992. Twenty-eight of
the patients were male and five were female. They ranged in age from four
to seventy-three years old. The injuries were associated with the use of
push lawn mowers (twenty-two patients), riding lawn mowers (nine patients),
and self-propelled lawn mowers (two patients). The injuries included forty
open fractures, twenty amputations, eighteen lacerations of the skin and
nail beds, nine lacerations of tendons, two closed fractures, segmental
loss of bone in two patients, and segmental loss of the Achilles tendon in
one patient. The findings on culture of intraoperative specimens revealed a
mean of 3.1 organisms (range, one to nine organisms) per patient. All of
the patients were managed with at least one operative procedure (mean, 2.4
operations; range, one to five operations), and all were treated with
parenteral antibiotic therapy (mean, 2.3 antibiotics; range, one to six
antibiotics) except for one patient who had oral antibiotic therapy. The
mechanism of injury was documented for twenty of the twenty-two patients
who had been injured by a push lawn mower. Seventeen patients were injured
while pulling the push lawn mower backward, and eight of those patients had
been pulling the lawn mower up a slope.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250
WORDS)