Thank you for asking that. Thank you very much. I spent my entire life absolutely terrified of lawnmowers! My family never owned one and Mom never allowed us kids around when any mower was operating, saying objects could fly so fast, some lady didn't even know she was hit till she looked down and saw a wire sticking out of her leg, and gravel could be flung with the force of bullets.
Once (I was probably 8-10 years old) when taking my sister to the hospital, we saw an old man limping out holding a hand gushing blood--I can still picture the red blood against the blue paper towels on his hand. He had suffered a lawnmower accident and was turned away--it was a bone injury and that hospital did not do those, he would have to go to the next town--30 miles down the road! Mom was shocked, saying, "They shouldn't send him away in that condition." They didn't even try to bandage it, just a loose wrapping of paper towels and hit the road, Jack. I think at least his wife or someone was driving and he didn't have to drive himself like that, but I was horrified.
When we were visiting out east the summer I was ten the newspaper had a report of one of two-year-old twins being chopped to ribbons by a lawnmower. That was a riding lawnmower, of course. Years later a friend told me of an accident in which a kid about the same age was not killed, but castrated, so they turned him into a girl. I not only never touched a mower which was turned on, I wouldn't even stand near one--I had to have something between me and it.
This went on till the beginning of this summer. I never liked the guy mowing our lawn--he was grouchy, surly, and stupid, and I only put up with him because his mother is nice and I felt sorry for him because his sisters both died young and tragically. He works at the city cemetery and presumably has to mow the one sister's grave unless he has arranged for one of the others to do it. This year he herniated himself and went into the hospital for an operation. I'd had it up to here with the cemetery crew who are all kinds of obnoxious. The last straw was when they hacked my friend's Christmas wreath to pieces--I don't mean took off a corner, but must have destroyed the entire thing with a weed whacker--it's the only way it could have been so shredded and scattered--then they didn't even pick it up! I was several times there having to pick up pieces flung over a wide area! I don't know whether this guy was responsible (he is far from the only idiot on the premises) but I said that's it--I'm buying a mower! I bought one unused but secondhand, unfortunately not very good. I've mowed the lawn starting at age 53, only a handful of times and the mower is in the shop. I tried to get someone else to mow, only one response and that person could not start their mower either.
By the way, this is the first mower our family (not counting sisters' husbands) has owned since my parents were married in 1960!