Snowblowers One Of Winter’s Risks

It happens after every heavy snowstorm. You’re chugging along with the snow blower, trying to clear your driveway and not be late for work. The gnawing machine gets a chunk of heavy, wet slush stuck between its teeth. Wisely, you think, you turn the motor off and reach in to clear the blockage.

Next thing you know, your friends are calling you Lefty. If you’re lucky. Albany Medical Center Hospital’s emergency room sees this after every heavy, wet snowfall.

“I could just walk through the department and see, ‘there’s one, there’s one, there’s one,”’ said Dr. Wayne Triner of AMC’s emergency room, where many of the area’s snow blower/hand injuries first show up.

Although there are no ready statistics on snow blower accidents, Triner said a few facts are clear: injuries are common, they are continuing, and they are nasty.

Much of the time the injuries happen after the engine is turned off, he explained, because when the snow or ice blockage is removed from the snow blower’s auger it can release built-up pressure in the blades. That gives an unexpected extra turn or two of the snow chomper, Triner said.

Usually, the result is serious.

Injuries to adults and youths often involve open finger fractures and tendon damage, which can mean long-term, even permanent, loss of hand dexterity and strength, Triner said. Sometimes long-term pain isn’t a problem, because far too often the fingers are lost.

Medical journals document the case throughout northern climes. One Canadian medical researcher found that a single heavy snowstorm in the city of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, yielded nine snow blower accidents that damaged a total of 19 fingers.

Causes were listed as rushing the job after or before work in the low light of early morning or dusk, and frustration of repeated clogging by heavy snow.

“The injuries themselves,” the researchers concluded, “resembled low-velocity missile injuries.”

Another study found the accidents almost always affect the dominant hand and that the index and ring fingers were wounded 77 percent of the time.

Fortunately, research has found a way to avoid this hazard: Keep your hands out of these powerful blade-wielding machines.