By Beck Vass
A Tauranga man lay injured for almost an hour, 3m below a ride-on lawn mower that hung precariously above him after an accident at Mt Drury at 9.40am yesterday.
The 46-year-old man, a contractor who was mowing grass on the hill, was taken to Tauranga Hospital with minor to
moderate leg and face injuries after the crash on Mt Drury's northeastern side.
Police and St John Ambulance called firefighters to the scene due to the difficult rescue on steep terrain and the threat posed by the mower, which was on its wheels with its blades above the man.
Tauranga Fire Service Senior Station Officer Grant Taylor said the man was thrown about 3m down a bank when the mower hit the tree stump and became stuck. He said the mower's engine was off but the man was below the machine with a suspected broken leg.
"He must have lost control of the mower and it ran down, fell, or tumbled down a steep bank. The mower was stopped when it hit a tree trunk," he said. "The main concern for us was that the lawn mower was just balancing above him. He lay with an [injured] leg underneath the mower, which was only held by the tree trunk."
Firefighters used wire strops and chains to stabilise the mower before removing the man. He was lifted on a Stoke's basket, a stretcher to move injured people from steep slopes, and taken to hospital.
