A two-year-old boy from Central Florida is in critical condition after his leg was ran over by a lawn mower, marking the third lawn mower incident leaving a child injured in the state, Fox News reported.
Anthony Meza, 2, was riding his bike outside of his Lake Placid home while his mother, Maria Isabel Huerto Bello, 23, was mowing the lawn. Once his mother put the machine in reverse, Meza was hit.
"Right now, all the evidence points that this was an accident," said Nell Hays, public information officer.
The boy was flown to Tampa General Hospital and is in critical condition. No further details about the incident have been released.
This is the third incident this year involving a lawn mower injuring a child in Florida.
In April, Jeremiah Nugent, 42, accidentally ran his lawn mower over his two-year-old daughter, Ireland, causing both of her feet to be severed at the ankles. Her left hand was also wounded but is in tact. Ireland was taken to the same Tampa hospital as Meza to be treated.
In July, a man accidentally drove his lawn mower over his four-year-old daughter, Makaya Lee, injuring her right leg.
"I just saw a dad panicking and a little girl panicking and then I saw this baby panicking and I just knew that I had to be strong because I would not have wanted to be in that man's shoes," said Wendy Harbarugh, a neighbor who helped bandage Makaya's wounds. "I've asked everybody I know, put them on their prayer list because they're a good family."
The girl's injuries were not life threatening but were "very, very severe," according to a spokeswoman for Hardee County Fire Rescue.
Hearing about each child being injured in lawn mower accidents was particularly upsetting for the Nugent family, whose daugther now relies on prosthetic limbs.
"Something has got to change," said Ireland's mother, Nicole Nugent, after Meza's accident. "I'm not a lawnmower manufacturer, but these are happening too many times and too close together."
Nicole Nugent also expressed her sorrow for the family of Mayaka Lee as well.
"I would love to go and just sit with them, cry with them, be with them. We had so much support when we were there. That's what got us through this," she said. "Not everything is going to go wonderfully, but in the end your daughter will be running, jumping, laughing, playing just like she was before the accident."
