PUPPY RUN OVER BY LAWNMOWER
By Charlie Gill
A puppy run over by a lawnmower has spent three nights in hospital to treat fractures in three places. Bunny, a fourteen-week-old rescue, was playing in Edinburgh Gardens when her legs were caught beneath a council-contracted mower. Now, as a local couple consider their $10,000 medical bill, dog owners have pressured Yarra City Council into making preventative changes.
“We all thought we were going to see a dog get chopped up,” one witness told The Rotunda. “It was horrific.”
For months, drainage issues in parts of the Edinburgh Gardens off-leash area have forced dog owners to congregate on Alfred Crescent Oval. On the morning of September 28th, at around 7:30am, approximately 30 dogs and as many owners were gathered in its north-western corner, wary of a mower on the other side of the oval.
“It was particularly busy because it was a particularly beautiful morning,” says Joe, who was there with Tammy, his Saint Bernard. “We’d been seeing the lawnmowers at least twice a week on that oval. Over the last six months, we’d all been complaining about it.”
“I noticed that the lawnmower was there,” says a local named Sunni, who was in the park with her new puppy. “But I also saw there was a big group of people with their dogs, and Bunny was really excited to see all the puppies that she’s been hanging out with.”
Suddenly, the mower began skirting the oval’s perimeter in their direction. “We all realised his route was going to intersect with where we were,” Joe told The Rotunda.
“The group parted to allow the tractor to go through. In the confusion, we became aware of a puppy that had taken a wrong turn...It had gone under the rollers of the mowing unit.
"When I picked her up, she was quite limp,” says Sunni. “I just ran home because I was scared that she was going to die. I thought maybe her organs were crushed.”
As witnesses were left in tears, Sunni and her partner Pete drove Bunny to a veterinary hospital where she spent three nights undergoing surgery. Her fractures in her femur and pelvis might result in a permanently shortened leg and somewhat restricted movement for the rest of her life.
“So now we’re like $10,000 in debt, and also have a compromised little baby dog.”
Soon, a community petition—created without Sunni or Pete’s knowledge—demanded the council and contractor take accountability for both the medical bill and their management strategies. In response, the council held a public meeting at Alfred Crescent on October 7th, a stone’s throw from where the incident took place.
Ken Gomez, councillor for Nicholls Ward, stood with a tennis-ball holder on his waist and leash strung across him like a mayoral sash. The actual mayor, Councillor Stephen Jolly—who has announced his intention to run for Lord Mayor of Melbourne having recently been acquitted of an assault charge—stood nearby in dark sunglasses.
Multiple locals spoke about the indifference to safety shown by mower operators throughout Edinburgh Gardens in general. One witness described the driver involved in the incident with Bunny, who did not get out of his seat after the incident and eventually drove away, as “callous and discompassionate”. Another suggested that the situation was possibly a consequence of a “neoliberal model” that burdens workers with unreasonable deadlines.
Pete briefly spoke to thank the community for its support, but the relief of tension was short-lived. A woman reported multiple near misses over the past six months involving both dogs and children. The people wanted answers from their council.
Eventually, Mayor Jolly stepped forward and offered the crowd a solution.
“While it’s true that under Section 2526 of the Domestic Animals Act—that oversees all our parks here in Yarra—everyone’s got to have their dog in the lead when there’s maintenance going on in the area, it seems to me crazy to do the maintenance just before nine o’clock when so many people are out here with their dogs.”
He proposed for mowers to no longer operate any time prior to 9am from Monday to Friday, a change that was formalised a few days later. Councillor Gomez also committed to increased signage whenever mowing is happening nearby.
For many at the meeting, this was a common sense quick-fix, but for Sunni and Pete there’s no quick way to fix up $10,000.
“I feel like that’s sort of what public liability insurance is for,” Sunni told The Rotunda, after a City of Yarra higher-up told her and Pete that any insurance claim would have to go through the contractor itself. “That is what it should be serving, and we should be compensated…You don’t need to be mowing the lawns at 8am. You don’t need to come that close.”
“The council can’t just have contractors, then shirk responsibility for how they act,” says Joe.
Meanwhile, Bunny’s road to both psychological and physical recovery is just beginning. “I carried her close to the oval the other day, and she did start trembling a little bit,” Sunni says. “So she definitely has an association now with that place as being a bit scary…But I do feel like her personality is coming back, and I think she’s going to be okay.”
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