'Rescue Rick' offers mowing safety tips

The local man is on a crusade to prevent lawn mower accidents.
PITTSBURGH (AP) -- Richard Mudrinich of Hermitage, Pa., is a little old for trick-or-treating.
But that's OK, since the 40-year-old Mercer County man won't be looking for candy. He'll be handing out lawn mower safety leaflets when he goes door to door on Halloween, dressed as Rescue Rick, the Grass Cut Man.
Mudrinich dreamed up his superhero alter ego and the Web site he calls home (www.freewebs.com/rescuerick/) as he recovered from having accidentally cut off part of his foot with a mower last September.
Mudrinich wears a red cape, knee-high rainbow-striped socks and yellow T-shirt and took to cyberspace with his safety slogan "Think before you cut. It hurts!" He's passed out leaflets outside Pittsburgh Pirate games and other events, markets his T-shirts and other wares on the Web and is now trying to strike up relationships with groups ranging from schools to lawn mower manufacturers. "What are you going to do, sue somebody?" Mudrinich said. "I decided I'd try approaching lawn mower manufacturers or whoever to do what I can to prevent these types of accidents from happening to other people."
How it happened
Mudrinich was mowing on the side of the hill when he slipped and lost his balance, causing his left foot to slip under the machine. He lost his big toe and suffered a deep cut nearly the width of his foot. For the truly curious -- and just in time for Halloween -- you can see a picture of Mudrinich's foot on his Web site.
"It does affect my balance, it affects my ability to stand on my feet for prolonged periods of time," Mudrinich said, noting that he takes two or three Advil tablets every few hours to make it through his shift at the packaging machine where he works.
"I used to run 5Ks and 10Ks and be physically fit," Mudrinich said. "As of now, if I try to run, it hurts tremendously. I run like a wounded deer; I kind of have an altered gait."
Medical and public safety authorities estimate that 60,000 to 100,000 people are injured by lawn mowers in the United States each year.
According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission's hospital database survey, more than 27,000 people required emergency room treatment for lawnmower injuries last year.
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