Joyce Burnside had backed as far away as she could, crab walking down her hillside lawn on her hands, but her tumbling riding lawnmower and its whirling blade kept following her — 30 feet down the slope until a tree blocked her from going any further.
The blades of the out-of-control Murray mower should have stopped within five seconds after Burnside jumped from the seat. But this defective mower didn’t stop until it tore into Burnside.
“I got off the mower and it rolled over and over and it never shut off,” the 58-year-old Lincoln County resident said Friday about the May 2002 incident.
Burnside tried to protect herself by throwing up her left arm, but the twirling mower blade chopped off all but her thumb and forefinger, while cutting her elbow and crushing the bone.
“The mower felt like it was tipping over, so I panicked,” and jumped off, she said. “It rolled completely at least three times that we know of.”
After tearing through her arm, the blade finally stopped.
That horrifying incident was only the beginning of the real tale of terror that Burnside has lived through since.
“Mrs. Burnside went through 18 operations, which included trying to put a cadaver elbow joint in place,” said Charleston lawyer Jeff Jones, who with Jack Kessler served as co-counsels in the suit Burnside would file against Wal-Mart. “They were all unsuccessful and, right now, she has no elbow and only the forefinger and thumb on her left hand.”
“I have very limited use,” Burnside said of her injured arm. “I can’t put my arm over my head.”
“There’s no mobility. There’s nothing there,” Jones said.
Murray, the lawnmower’s manufacturer, had filed for bankruptcy and gone out of business, but Wal-Mart, which sold the riding mower to Burnside, had continued to sell the defective product. So Jones and Kessler filed a federal lawsuit against the giant discount retailer.
“Wal-Mart admitted [at the trial] they were the ones that would be responsible,” Jones said.
During the trial, Jones and Kessler hammered home mower standards stipulated by the American National Standard Institute that allow for the engine to continue running for only five seconds after a person gets off the machine.
Following a three-day trial in May, jurors agreed. They made an award of $2.45 million, but stipulated that Burnside was 25 percent responsible, giving her $1.856 million.
Wal-Mart appealed and following mediation this month at the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., agreed to pay Burnside $1.8 million.
“Let’s face it,” she said, “nothing’s going to replace what I’ve been through.”
Luckily, her son was nearby their Upper Mud River Road residence when the incident occurred. Because of that, Burnside quickly got medical help. But she also quickly found out one of the real perils of lawnmower incidents: infection.
“They said mowers are the worst,” Burnside said, referring to the blades, which can be covered in grass, dirt, weeds and grease.
“It kept getting infected, so they finally ended up taking the elbow out,” she said.
About a year after that, her Louisville, Ky., surgeon called and recommended replacing her elbow with a cadaver’s. Despite a spate of surgeries already, Burnside agreed to another.
But infection and surgical problems loomed ahead.
“I almost died that time because there was an artery that was severed and I was in ICU for two days,” she said.
While her doctor has recommended trying elbow surgery again, Burnside is leery of any more surgery, fearing additional health problems.
“It would have to be almost a guarantee [of a successful outcome],” she said.
Instead, she plans to have an addition to her house built and use the remaining money to help get things — such as mowing her grass — done by others.
“It’ll help me get around,” she said.