By Pamela Lehman
The Morning Call
NAZARETH, Pa. — Colonial Regional Police officers called to assist at a medical call Monday night found a harrowing sight in the backyard of a home with a boy’s leg tangled in the blades of a riding lawn mower with his frantic father nearby.
Despite the gruesome injuries, the 6-year-old boy calmly asked for his mom several times as a police officer held his hand and spoke to him, said police Chief Roy Seiple.
“It was such an incredible effort by everyone there to care for this boy,” Seiple said. “It was unbelievable.”
Police say around 6:12 p.m., they were called to a home in the 500 block of Christine Ann Lane in Lower Nazareth Township. Authorities did not identify the family involved, but said the boy was injured in a “terrible accident,” Seiple said.
He said the boy’s father had been mowing the lawn that spans about an acre and when he backed up the mower, he didn’t see the boy nearby. The mower “backed over” the boy, trapping his leg in the blades.
“[The father] just didn’t expect his son to be there,” Seiple said.
Seiple credits the man for using used his belt to make a tourniquet around the boy’s injured leg and having the strength to push the mower onto its side.
Seiple said he reviewed body camera footage of the rescue effort, saying he was amazed at the boy’s tolerance for pain.
“He wasn’t screaming or crying, he’d just ask for his mom every once in awhile,” Seiple said. “Thank God the mower didn’t move much further up his leg or it would have resulted in even worse injuries.”
Authorities say it took a “collaborative effort” with paramedics from Bethlehem Township and Hecktown Fire members to free the injured boy. Seiple said the mower’s blade had to be removed to help free the boy.
After he was freed from the blades, a police officer provided a second tourniquet to help stop the bleeding.
The boy remains in the intensive care unit at Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest where he is in stable condition, police say.
Seiple said the boy is “not out of the woods yet,” but likely will recover from his injuries. He said officers were offered counseling after the harrowing call.
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