An Abingdon, Virginia (VA) man was going about his day keeping his yard in presentable condition by mowing the lawn. Suddenly, his Club Cadet lawn mower did a “wheelie” and rolled over on top of him. The result was a broken back and months of pain and suffering.
The injured victim was diagnosed was a compression fracture of the T-10 vertebrae but when he got home from the hospital, he couldn’t move. He was unable to eat, drink, urinate, move his bowels, feel his legs, or walk, according to allbusiness.com.
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This agony went on for months and he even suffered temporary paralysis of his legs. To this day, he has limited mobility and neurological problems in his legs. In this lawnmower accident, the victim lost his life.
Unfortunately, serious injuries from lawnmower accidents are becoming all too familiar. In fact, roughly 80,000 Americans require hospital treatment from injuries caused by lawnmowers, according to a study conducted by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Let’s hope most people don’t have to go through the same legal hoops the victim in Abingdon is now going through. He retained counsel and is seeking $5 million in damages from MTD, the manufacturer of the faulty lawnmower.
MTD contends the physical ailments were not really their fault, but were caused by the medical negligence of the doctors visited who treated the victim after the lawnmower rollover accident.
This is a rather weak argument by MTD since they haven’t denied that the rollover of their product was a key factor in causing the injury. An expert for MTD said that “prompt and proper” treatment would have produced a “good outcome” for the victim since he came to the ER with no impairment of neurologic function. Essentially, MTD is trying to reduce their level of liability by pointing the finger at the doctors and saying they committed medical malpractice.
The judge in the case did not buy this argument by MTD. He stated, “The neurological injuries suffered…stem directly from his compressed and burst vertebra, which [resulted from] the heavy lawn mower landing on his chest. Any third party negligence is thus irrelevant to [the] claim against MTD and must be excluded from the jury.”
The case is still going through the litigation process at the time of this posting. I hope the victim receives the compensation he rightfully deserves.