A Painful Reminder

Imagine for a moment you are out in your garden. You step back to admire a plant or your latest project, and without any kind of warning, find yourself falling backwards. You are trying to keep your balance, but to no avail. You hit the ground; butt first, without any resemblance of dignity or grace.

Now, visualize yourself moaning in pain, trying to stand up and realize every time you move your leg, your ankle sends a message to your brain screaming out, “STOP! I HURT!” This is right about the time you realize, the reason your ankle hurts is because it is sprained, or worse yet, broken.

You ask yourself: “What happened? How did I wind up here on the ground, with an injured ankle and wounded pride, and in a whole lot of pain?”

Taking a look around, you see a hole in the ground.

Looking back on earlier events in the year you realize you saw this particular hole and meant to fill it in. Now, as you sit here in your garden plot surrounded by heirloom tomatoes, early summer squash, and your new founded pain, the reason escapes you why you didn’t take the time to fill the hole with rocks, dirt or both.

Garden Accidents Are Common Place

This type of accident can and does happen quite often. According to statistics compiled by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) your accident was just one of the numerous occurrences befalling an unwary gardener every day.

Hospital Emergency rooms treat more than 400,000 garden related injuries each year and those accidents are just from using garden tools. Add to the amount of accidents that are not tool related and the average of garden related injuries will be higher.

The accident that most often takes place in a garden is falling.

According to the enclosed chart at the top of this article the statsistics out of a little less than 50,000 garden related injuries, (49,500) the biggest threats to people actually working in the garden comes from ’Cuts’ (19000), followed by ‘Falling’ (18000) and last, people who are ‘Struck by Objects.’ (12,800)

Taking time and using simple safety precautions can prevent many of the injuries represented in the chart.

Staying Sharp to Avoid Cuts

1. Always wear gloves. Wearing gloves will protect your hands from injuries due to coming in contact with sharp objects, exposed or unexposed (Broken glass, nails, wire,)
2. When working with edged tools (hoe, shovel, spade, trowel, knife, etc.) always ensure the edges are sharp. Dull edged tools require extra force to do their job, making it easier to injure yourself.
3. Always know where any tools are located.
4. Keep tools away from or closely supervise children if they are using garden tools.
5. Always know what’s around you. This includes people, pets or any objects.

Make Your Next Trip a Planned Trip

1. Walk around the garden and look for holes. Fill any in the ground that you see.
2. Remove or cover any exposed trip points including garden hoses, pipes, stumps, roots, or anything in your path.
3. Know the location of your tools to avoid tripping on them.
4. Become familiar with the natural surroundings in your garden and advise any visitors of what to be aware of.
5. Avoid the garden during inclement weather. (Heavy Rain, Snow, Ice)

Strike Back at Striking Objects.

1. When using a lawnmower, avoid running over objects other than grass.
2. Do not toss, or throw tools to any person that may be working with you
3. Do not hang garden tools and other objects from trees.
4. When pruning tree limbs avoid standing under the tree limb to be pruned
5. When using any tools be aware of your surroundings. Ensure people, pets or any objects are well out of striking range.

Enjoy Gardening Safely

Taking shortcuts to hurry things along, not having the skills to do a certain task, bad planning, taking risks and plain old bad luck can prove harmful to your garden and more importantly cause injuries to yourself or the people you love.

By using a few minutes of common sense safety techniques your chances of becoming one of the 400,000 people hurt in garden related injuries will decrease significantly.

It is a great feeling to be out in nature. It is even a greater feeling to be working with nature and shaping your garden to your way of liking.

Make your garden a safe place relax so the next time you are out in your garden admiring plants or latest gardening projects enjoy yourself without having to worry about keeping your dignity or grace.

May your gardening experience be a safe and happy one.