Robot lawn mower horror as 11-month-old baby suffers ‘serious injuries’ after being run over by device while crawling in garden in Austria

An 11-month-old baby suffered a ‘serious injury’ to his foot after being run over by a lawn mower in Austria.

Dr. Johannes Schalamon said the child was admitted to the Klagenfurt clinic in southern Austria this weekend after the horrific accident.

“The child was crawling in the garden when he was hit by the robotic lawnmower and suffered a massive injury to his foot,” he said.

Schalamon told local media that the child required two hours of surgery, but that follow-up treatments are still required.

He warned that two or three small children need to be treated every year in his ward at the teaching hospital, Austria’s third largest, after incidents involving lawn mowers, with the most horrific injuries sometimes tragically leading to amputations.

Doctors at Klagenfurt hospital (pictured) call for greater awareness of the risks of lawn mowers

Schalamon did not confirm the nature or extent of the child’s injuries, or whether amputation would be necessary.

But pediatric and adolescent surgeons at the Klagenfurt clinic warned that children are still at risk of injuries, given the growing popularity of ‘robotic’ lawn mowers.

Last year, an eight-year-old girl from Ammanford in south-east Wales made headlines when she was chosen to represent her country in a dance show in the US after losing her leg in a freak lawnmower accident.

Alys Davies returned to action just ten weeks after requiring a below-the-knee amputation.

She was fitted with a prosthetic leg and took part in a competition in the US within three months of the accident, shocking medics.

Alys was playing in the garden with her sister when her leg became stuck in her father’s ride-on lawn mower, causing the skin to be removed from her lower leg.

She said: ‘I was filming my sister and then the lawnmower came and I stepped back and the lawnmower grabbed my leg and peeled my skin off.

‘I had a shock and didn’t think I would be able to do things I did before the accident.’

Alys was able to return to form with a specialist blade made available by the Welsh Health Specialist Services Committee, NHS Wales and funding from the Welsh Government.

A comprehensive one judgement of lawn mower injuries published in 2021 came to the frightening conclusion that accidents were increasing worldwide.

“Those injuries are usually devastating and threatening to the limbs,” the authors noted.

The study examined 142 young patients over a period of 25 years, with an average age of just seven and a half years.

Of all patients, almost 70 percent suffered an open fracture and almost 40 percent required amputation.

Younger patients were also at greater risk for wrist or ankle amputations than older patients.

The authors said wider public education about the dangers of lawn mower accidents was ‘essential’ to halt the rising trend.

File photo. Klagenfurt in southern Austria, home to the country’s third largest hospital

File photo. Researchers who study child injuries say younger children are at greater risk for harm

A separate study of 1,302 lawn mower injuries to children aged 1 to 18 between 2005 and 2017 found that children in rural areas were at greater risk of injury.

The study also found that injuries were more severe on average, requiring more frequent hospitalizations and introducing additional complications from the infection.

“Although devastating, these accidents are largely preventable,” write senior study author Dr. Theodore Ganley of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and colleagues.

In nearly half of children between one and five years of age, researchers concluded “that these accidents occurred due to a lack of supervision or parental errors involving children/infants who had not yet developed the judgment and ability to recognize the dangers of lawn mowers.” to avoid and recognize. ‘.

An estimated 9,400 lawn mower injuries occur in American children each year, researchers note in the Journal of the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons.