Indian Hills girl hurt in snow blower accident

Quick thinking by an Indian Hills mom probably saved her daughter from serious injury last week.

A snow blower being used by the woman on a steep driveway shot a projectile of ice or snow, injuring the 7-year-old girl and knocking her to the ground in front of the whirling blades.

The mom’s quick reaction to release the hand controls prevented the girl from being hit by the machine’s blades. The names of the child and the family have not been released, and the family declined to be interviewed.

“Things like this happen in a split second,” said Don Schoenbein, Indian Hills fire chief.

Schoenbein said the department responded to a call at 11:35 a.m. March 24 in the 5500 block of U.S. 285. Firefighters believe a projectile hit the girl, and she fell against the snow blower and possibly hit her head on it.

Schoenbein said the girl had one deep cut on her leg and a shallow cut on her scalp.

At the time, the Indian Hills area was covered with about 20 inches of snow from a recent storm, and the family lives on the shady side of a hill with a long, steep driveway.

“After 26 years, I’ve seen it many, many times,” Schoenbein said.

Schoenbein has seen accidents occur when people have tied the controls so the snow blower blades remain running or when people stick their hands in the mechanism to clear a blockage.

Schoenbein said it’s important to keep children away from snow blowers and to be aware of surroundings. He said that gravel, twigs or rocks will fly out of a snow blower like bullets and injure people.

All the safety controls on the snow blower in last week’s accident were properly used, which prevented the outcome from being worse, Shoenbein said. The mother’s quick reactions kept her daughter from further harm.

As the 40-pound girl was carried down the driveway for transport to Swedish Medical Center, she told firefighters her bandaged cuts were feeling better.

“She was a very brave girl,” Schoenbein said.

From the High Timber Times March 31, 2010