6 people hospitalized in 2 days due to snowblower-related injuries

It may seem like this doesn’t need to be said, but one local hospital begs to differ - don't put your hand in a snowblower.

In the last two days, doctors at Lahey Hospital in Burlington have treated six different patients for making that mistake.

While no one has died from accidentally sticking their hands inside a snowblower, emergency responders urge people not to try and reach in to clean them.

Some, however, have lost a few fingers. Doctors said not all those patients could find the piece of the finger that was cut off.

People who own snowblowers, however, say complications with the machine are not surprising.

"This rock got pulled into the blades of this snowblower here," said Arthur Fox, of Lexington. "Sometimes the shoot gets blocked up."

The answer, however, to fixing anything that might be lodged in between the blades, should never be your hands.

"The snow is very wet and it did get packed and stuck in here, I had to of course use this and get it out and not my hand," said Fox.

Lawrence firefighters say they had to extricate a man’s stuck hand out of a snowblower, and they felt bad enough for him that they shoveled his driveway and put his snowblower back together.

"Most commonly we have cuts to the fingers, we have had a few who have had finger amputations and they cannot be re-implanted because they are generally lost in the snow," said Dr. Casper Reske-Nielsen.

Dr. Reske-Nielsen says that, despite warning labels telling you not to stick your hands inside the snowblower, people often make the mistake of thinking that just because the machine is off that theyr'e cleared of any dangers.

"I think most of them have turned it off before that but the problem is sometimes the motor gets jammed so even if it is off the springs will disengage once you release the obstruction, said Dr. Reske-Nielsen.

The tip for those clearing snow with a snowblower? Always use the clearing stick and never your hands.

Some people also often don't notice how close they are to the blades due to the snow that's accumulated on them.

While this may seem shocking to some, doctors say they see people making poor decisions like this every snowstorm.

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