I would say it is no proof at all that a front load washer is unsafe for kids. The only proof you see there is someone who does not think before acting - and that's nothing to do with FL or TL washers. You don't like them, that's fine, but don't act as though a video showing an ADULT doing something unutterably stupid proves a point to suit you.
Modern Consumer front loading machines can sense if the load is shifting when the tub is stationary. If this happens, the machine will abort the cycle and unlock the door. It's a safety feature. I'm not about to try it myself though!
Commercial machines don't have this capability because it's extra electronics which could fail, resulting in less income and higher maintenance costs for the owner. It does make me wonder though if there is anything a commercial manufacturer could implement which could prevent this from happening.
I agree with Dascot, both front loaders and top loaders are as equally as dangerous in a laundromat. Both machines have their fallacies. At least they were able to get the kid out of the machine with only minor injuries, thank God.
I think that the whole "Which machine is more dangerous" thing is a topic for another thread IMHO and provides a good argument in itself, but it's not really appropriate for this thread.
This suddenly reminds me of a memory... I can tell this story now...
There was an old neglected laundromat near where I used to live, since long gone...
Inside, were a bunch of older Huebsch dryers, the large kind with the large glass door that you could probably fit at least two loads in with no problem.
Anyway, on one of the dryers, the belt was broken... on a dare, a friend of mine got inside the dryer and rocked the drum as fast as he could.. Of course, eventually, the dryer started banging against the other dryers as it rocked back and forth.
We had a content to see how fast we could get the dryer spinning... being dumb kids, we didn't really realize that we could have killed ourselves, breathing in the fumes from the gas or knocking loose the gas line...
I bet the owner wondered why the heck he was blowing through bearings like crazy...
"dryer riding" heard of it when I was a kid-I didn't do this-but other kids would go to a laundramat to "ride" the dryers-they would try to do that before the laundramat operator caught them.
This is just horrible I'm absolutely shocked that someone could do such a thing, joke or no joke these machine are design in such away, once activated they will lock until the cycle is over, but in some laundromats, machine are sometimes know to have a power shortages, where the customer has inserted coins into machine but it will not start, so they will move there laundry to another machine thinking that machine is broken until the next person comes and uses it and it works again, in this case the father must of thought the machine was offline but WRONG!! but the father of the child, honestly should be sent to prison life sentence and the child should be adopted into a loving family who are not stupid enough to do such a thing, this video really ranges me, i don't know how i would of reacted if i was at the laundromat, i would of been in total shock.
Channel 5 updated the story tonight, the man was said to be "unidentified male", the woman was a "baby-sitter", This occurred in New Jersey. The news did show the child, and stated the child was not seriously harmed. The parents learned of the event through social media and news coverage.
WMC Action News 5 leads the Mid-South in breaking news and weather for Memphis, Germantown, Collierville, Bartlett, Olive Branch, Southaven and West Memphis.
Babysitter and her boyfriend? The link contains no reference to the story. ANYthing can happen in Joisey. And they call California and Texas the "nut states". (eyeroll)
Just read the NJ prosecutor declined to press charges but the mother has been outraged over this. Babysitter lied and told mother that child fell down a stairway.
That seems to be a degenerate community all around, similar reaction to the mother who wouldn't press charges after her 11-yo son was assaulted in the park by three girls and filmed. I would be damned if those f*ckers would get off that easy if it were my child. "Hey I'll show you a prank and it involves 1 hand and a swift, upward swing movement of the arm". I dunno, looks like the mom is as bad as the "baby-sitters"... Maybe she don't want the fuzz hangin around longer than they need to, maybe the home conditions are more deplorable than these imbeciles are providing, a truly scary though.
Seriously, for the things that I've seen Child Services pursue and for this to seem to passing over so quietly, it boggles my mind.
I remember going to the laundromat with my mom in the early 70's and there were only two front loaders "Big Boy's" and they had an emergency shut off. I saw this on our local news too, and was shocked why would you even jokingly put a child in a washer and shut the door? He must of fell out of the stupid tree and hit every branch on the way down.