Gardener loses fingers trying to kill moles

A foolish Upper Austrian angered by moles digging up his garden has lost two fingers when a bizarre DIY stunt to kill them went disastrously wrong.

The 34-year-old Aspach resident taped a pipe to the exhaust of his petrol-guzzling lawnmower and rammed the other end into the alley under a molehill to gas the animals.



When the infuriated hobby gardener noticed that one of the moles tried to escape through the gap between the ground and the mower, he tried to grab it – and had two fingers chopped off his right hand by the rotating blades.

Local officials said the man was hospitalised in a clinic in Ried im Innkreis following the incident which occurred on Monday, but did not make clear whether surgeons managed to sew the fingers back on.