Stump Grinder Accident: Michigan Man May Lose His Leg
A stump grinder accident could lead to an Inkster, Michigan, man having his left leg amputated. The man, who has remained anonymous, was working with the heavy machinery when he stepped in the wrong direction and was pulled in.
It all began around 6:11 p.m. Thursday, when the 30-something Inkster man was using his rented Bandit stump grinder alone outside his home and walked around the front of the machine. His pant leg was caught in the working machinery, which pulled him in and horribly mutilated his left leg up to his thigh, where it got stuck.
#Breaking: Person caught in a stump grinder in Inkster. UM Survival Flight headed there. Some grinders look like this pic.twitter.com/F5CQv1pGO4
— Shawn Ley (@ShawnLeyLive) December 12, 2014
His neighbors luckily saw what happened and called 911, resulting in emergency personnel arriving shortly and calling for a helicopter. He was air lifted to the University of Michigan Hospital in Ann Arbor, where he remains in stable, yet critical, condition.
Fire Chief John Adams explained how the stump grinder accident happened.
“Basically, the device itself actually had mangled his entire left leg. Our crews had to extricate him from the particular piece of equipment. As a result, we contacted mutual aid, and we had other departments in the area responding.
“The human body’s extremely fragile, and when we think about the device that we’re referring to subsequently coming in contact with the body, tearing it up … now we are seeing a lot of trauma. And him being trapped in the device and they couldn’t immediately remove him, that would cause that call to go out instantly.”
Officials claim the man’s left leg would need to be amputated due to the extensive damage. Because emergency crews couldn’t reach him right away, he was heavily sedated.
Representatives from Bandit have been contacted and questioned about their safety protocols. They claim that there is an instructional video about working with the machine in question, but it is unknown if the man involved in the stump grinder accident had watched the video before using the machine.
The case remains under investigation.
[Image via Total Landscape Care]
