Isn't this sad

[accapp]

The newer WP's do not agitate with the lid open. Probably due to cases like this. The newer Fishy-Pickles don't even fill with the lid up and they have a lock for spin.

I am surprised the trans hadn't failed or the trunnion bolt heads didn't shear on the W-W. What a POS! I'll be glad when they finally stop making those.

 

[jamiel]

I think the thing that's missing here is that "normal" agitation (reciprocal) isn't quite the same as having an action with the constant tub-turning of the WCI machine which doesn't have a dead-man/interlock. Since spin switches became mandatory in the 60s, the action which you could see was reciprocal, not single-direction.

 

[jetcone]

Okay parental controls

were not in place here that's obvious.
How could she be allowed to add towels and pass out on top of the machine as she stated? Only if she was unsupervised and even at her age she should be supervised around heavy machinery. Unless someone held her arm down between the agitator and tub??

It just doesn't add up the way they are telling the story.

It is a horrible occurance for her but like Dadoes says:

"A young child, not having much physical strength, could conceivably get an arm caught and pulled by the rollover/agitating motion of the clothes, but she'd have to be tall enough to reach fairly deep down into the water while standing, or be sitting on top of the machine."

2+3 don't = 4 here. There is more to the story than what has been told.
Those washing currents aren't that strong,heck a babbling brook has stronger currents. The indexing tub however between the tub base and agitator base is a nasty spot. But say she got her hand caught there or her hand was held there, the most that could happen is to loose a finger or two not the bottom third of her arm. That "might" make you pass out but you sure as hell would be screaming long before that so where were the parents?
If it took her arm, the machine would jam on the arm bone or she'd be wrenched back out on one of the opposing strokes.

Something doesn't add up here.

It would take a Unimatic at full spin to wrench an arm off.

A horrible thing whatever happend. Poor kid.

 

[jetcone]

Right there

The mother said it happend in 1998, almost 10 years ago, say that girl is at most 16 so she would have been 6. Too short to reach the bottom of the tub without having her head in there and drowning. How could a 6 year old decide to do wash and reach up and turn on the machine with out a parent there?
If she climbed up was she smart enough to know where to set the dial for wash especially when she couldnt ever see the dial? I think if she was totally alone then somehow she climbed up and with the lid not in a locking position managed turn the dial to spin not wash and with the lock defeated she got her arm caught in spin not wash. That would mean the saftey was manually defeated and then the parents would be responsible not the manufacturer.

This story does not hold together well at all.

 

[whirlcool]

Warning labels on ladders, you say?

Watch this clip and listen to the host trying to recover gracefully!

 

[peterh770]

I want one of those TAPPON washing machines! It absorbs the dirt away!

Mom stays at home to teach her kids, and taught her daughter that you start the washer, put in the detergent, wait for it to start washing to dissolve and distribute the detergent, and then load the clothes. I'm with Jon: if this happened in 1998, how old was she and how far away was the mother?

"I blacked out and fell into the washing machine." She will probably also black out while driving and hit someone and then sue the car manufacturer. Black out in college and sue the school for failing. Black out and suddenly become pregnant...

 

[jetcone]

Black out and suddenly become pregnant...

LOL HAHAHAH!!!

oops on that one!

 

[roto204]

Are you kidding?

"I don't know how this could have happened in our home..."

Yeah, me either. If she had her hand pulled down by this machine, it'd be the first thing in history in those indexing machines that got pulled-down and turned over.

Plus, if they're sincere--the kid blacked-out and ended up in the machine--then what's really responsible for this incident?

I feel sorry for the kid, but this is fundamentally ridiculous. I feel sorry for the company, because they'll probably settle to keep things polite.

In the end, it goes to show that yes, there is such a thing as plain-old bad luck, and no, no one is under any obligation to compensate you when it strikes. Just because something unfortunate happens to you doesn't mean that it's due to negligence on someone else's part. It's a very sad story, but I don't see where what happened to this kid is WCI's issue. It's just a freak accident.

Conversely, it's not like a bad parent thing. Accidents happen, and kids of any age have their moments when they're fully engaged in looking for new and interesting things. Sometimes you don't catch them, and sometimes they get into trouble.

I think the issue here is that it's not the parent's fault, not really the kid's fault (if it played out like she says it did), and certainly not WCI's fault. You can't engineer the world to make certain that nothing bad ever happens to anyone due to any circumstance, no matter how remote. I mean, seriously. Are we going to design machines to protect someone from blacking-out now? Maybe pad them so you just bounce off when you pass out? Or, perhaps supply a nice cushion for the floor in front of the machine to catch you when you land? Wouldn't a truly thoughtful, safety-conscious manufacturer think of all those possibilities?

It's an accident, people, and it's sad. But it's nobody's responsibility to shell-out $3 million to make the family feel better when you had an okay washer and an apparently defective kid.