SaferProducts incident

Failure type

Fire / ignition

Incident narrative

SaferProducts.gov consumer incident report 20190724-82DC8-2147379695. Severity: Injury, No First Aid or Medical Attention Received. Product: Troy Bilt TB 180 B (Troy Bilt TB 189 B leaf blower). Incident: I acquired this leaf blower as an item I received for cleaning out a neighbors garage in 2015. I have used it regularly on my driveway and street in front of my home along with the back patio. Today I cut my front lawn as usual, I edged and trimmed afterwards. Then I blow off the driveway and street gutter. I completed the driveway and all of the gutter except the last 2 feet or so. As I was swinging the blower in a sweeping motion left to right and back left again as I always do, it seemed to explode in my hands. It sounded like a large handgun going off in my hand. Then I immediately felt this intense pain in my leg. I would say it felt like I was shot, but I never have been, but I imagine it is pretty close to the feeling. I dropped the blower immediately on the ground and looked at my leg, then around to see if anybody else had heard the noise. A neighbor was out with her kids in a small pool and was looking at me as if she heard the noise. The blower was still powered up and I immediately went to the cord and unplugged it, not sure exactly what had happened. I looked for smoke from an electrical fire, but there was none. I then picked up the blower and a piece came sliding out a large hole in the side of the casing, and something else was rattling around inside the blower. There was another large hole on the other side of the casing. I had no idea what had just happened, but now my leg was really hurting. I couldn't understand why the thing exploded the way it did. I went in and examined my leg. A large welt started to form on my upper thigh. The welt was about the sam