I want to be clear upfront: I am not here to throw anyone under the bus. What happened was an accident. A completely foreseeable, entirely preventable accident — but an accident nonetheless. My wife would like me to note that she was trying to help.
We have a DeWalt 60V FlexVolt leaf blower. Had. Past tense, as of last weekend. It was a great machine — genuinely powerful, held a charge well, made quick work of the driveway every fall. I liked that blower. We had a good run.
The setup
She was wearing her Alo joggers. The nice ones with the long drawstring that hangs down below the waistband — you know the style. It's a perfectly reasonable choice of clothing for a Saturday morning. Nothing about that outfit says "yard work hazard." Nothing, that is, until you're leaning forward over a pile of leaves and the drawstring swings loose and goes directly into the intake.
The blower made a sound I can only describe as determined. It did not stop. It committed. Within about two seconds it had ingested several inches of waxed drawstring and wound it so thoroughly around the impeller that the motor seized hard enough to trip the thermal cutoff.
For what it's worth, the DeWalt held up admirably right up until the moment it couldn't anymore. That's all you can ask of any tool.
The damage report
The drawstring: gone. Fused into the impeller assembly in a way that required a screwdriver, pliers, and an amount of patience I did not know I had. The Alo sweats: structurally intact but now missing a drawstring, which means they're just pants now. The blower: dead. The impeller housing cracked when I tried to clear the jam, and at that point I made peace with it.
I looked up replacement parts. I considered it for a full minute. Then I looked at the housing again and closed the browser tab.
What I've learned
Powerful rotary equipment is genuinely indifferent to what it ingests. It doesn't distinguish between a leaf, a twig, and sixty dollars worth of athleisure cordage. The intake is the intake. It is not making judgments.
I have since ordered a replacement blower. I have also, very gently, suggested that drawstring management be part of the pre-yard-work checklist going forward. This suggestion was received with the same energy one receives any suggestion made immediately after an incident. We're working through it.
The yard looks great, by the way. She finished the whole driveway before the blower gave out. Credit where it's due.
