GARDENING: How to avoid a terrible accident with power tools
Apparently someone read my article on health and safety here a while back, which was jolly decent of them, and there was a request for further tips on how to avoid dying while gardening.
We could start with using powered machinery, and my main recommendation is – don’t. But then I’m prejudiced: petrol-run machinery is smelly, noisy and polluting and electrical machinery is just asking for a violent end.
OK, with the latter, special circuit breakers should stop you from lighting up nowadays, but it is still deeply worrying.
Before the invention of circuit breakers I cut two thirds of the way through the cable of the hedge trimmer I was operating. This is where you say, “You idiot”, and I reply, “Extremely lucky idiot”.
Surprisingly, brush cutters and strimmers are safer for the operator because the cutting part is at the far end of a stick. You would have to be a contortionist to have your fingers on the buttons and the blades or cords anywhere near your feet. They are really more of an issue for people standing nearby.
I’m quite a fan, to the point of almost getting one, of a battery-powered strimmer. They are relatively quiet at a slightly-annoying insect-like level and, while they easily deal with the grass and can inflict a mildly impressive flesh wound, your limbs will stay attached.
Battery-powered things have their issues, like power output and the length of the battery charge, but they are to be highly recommended in other areas: they are portable (not many of us can run a cable to the allotment), pollution-free (at point of use) and low noise levels ensure peace and quiet for everyone.
Chainsaws are possibly the scariest tools out there. You don’t come across films entitled The Texas Battery-powered Strimmer Massacre. So scary that I don’t want to talk about them.
So my plea is to avoid the power tools if you can and, if not, make absolutely sure you know what you are doing. Professionals do, don’t they?
The assessment of risks and hazards, I’m sure, is genuinely there to help us, but there has to be a strong element of common sense. I remember walking along the South West Coast Path with a friend who was worrying about her child going over the cliff edge.
“There ought to be a rail along it,” said the friend. “A rail?” I spluttered, “for 600 miles? Why not Tarmac the path to stop him tripping up, or pave the fields on the other side in case he gets hay fever?” You can see that, with friends like me, you don’t have to worry about enemies.
The point is – take some responsibility, use your common sense, employ some education. Let’s say you are violently ill after eating an unknown plant: when you get out of intensive care, admit that you made a mistake and don’t set up a national campaign to get it eradicated.
This happened (apparently) last year, when someone ate a plant called monkshood. This is a lovely garden plant – like a short delphinium, with tall spikes of dark blue flowers – and it’s slug resistant. Why did he eat it? We’ll never know. And while death from eating a mystery plant or toadstool is dreadful for all concerned, there is a tiny bit of me (part of a nasty, large bit of me) which says: “What do you expect?”
