I reported last year about the massive recall of about 900,000 Power Sweep electric blowers manufactured by Toro that had a bad habit of firing pieces of broken plastic at high velocity. The Consumer Product Safety Commission described 28 minor injuries from the defective blowers. I wanted to know more about what the CPSC considers a “minor” injury, so in December, I filed a Freedom of Information Act for all reports of injuries related to the Power Sweep blowers.

I got the records last week, about four months after I asked for them. They consist mainly of documents called consumer contact reports, from Toro, and the names and addresses of most of the consumers have been redacted. The CPSC said exemptions in FOIA and another federal law enabled them to withhold “portions of the records that identify injured persons, persons treating them and other consumers…” There are also letters from consumers, some of them identifiable. Altogether, the records do support the assertion that these were minor injuries, although the exploding blowers certainly gave their users an alarming experience.

(March 23, 2006, Neal Goldman, Woodland Hills, Calif.) I’ve used it no more than a dozen times and when I turned it on a few days ago, the motor started up and about 2-3 seconds later it just exploded for no apparent reason.

(Dec. 5, 2006) I am extremely disappointed with the Power Sweep. Today, I turned it on and the plastic blew off everywhere, hitting me in the face and cutting me on my chin and other places.

(Jan. 23, 2007) Customer blowing snow - it exploded. He has cuts and a pretty good one on his leg.

(Feb. 9, 2007) Customer was using to blow snow off driveway and impeller disintegrated and cut up his face.

(March 2, 2007, Dr. Susan Steele, Oklahoma) After she turned on the blower, she heard a sudden and dramatic increase in the RPMs followed immediately by an explosion. The force of the explosion tore the blower from her hand and shot a piece of casing against her leg, injuring Dr. Steele

(March 8, 2007) While the motor kept running the fan shot out of both sides of the housing. Bits and pieces of the housing and fan hit him in the fingers causing numbness for approximately 48 hours.

(Dec. 8, 2007, Winnipeg) Wally stated that he had been blowing snow off his vehicle when it exploded. He stated that he had been hit in the left eye with debris. He further stated that he was unable to see out of that eye for a number of days, and that even today his vision in that eye is still blurred, and that sun light bothers that eye and he has to wear sunglasses to ease the effect of the sun.

(Jan. 21, 2008) using the blower over the weekend and the blower exploded the motor came out of the side small piece hit husbands foot and made a small puncture in his foot did not need medical attention

(Feb. 7, 2008) Cust, used it one day and it was fine, the next day he went to use it and it made a crazy noise and then a bunch of plastic came flying out everywhere… cust said one of of the pieces went through his glove and cut his hand

(April 21, 2008) When I turned it on 2 days ago, I heard and felt a loud bang. The unit was against my abdomen and caused a few small abrasions. Tiny little pieces of the black impeller/fan shot out of the unit and hit my house (luckily not my children).

(April 23, 2008) customer has abrasions on his stomach and quite concerned with this danger

(May 27, 2008) Cust was using unit and made a popping noise, started to hum and vibrate, she put it on the ground went to her garage and pulled the cord out. Casing blew out and hit side of garage and caused a good hole in the side of her garage

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