CPS should take a look into this. NEWSFLASH: If you can't supervise your child GET SOMEONE ELSE TO DO IT!!!

the article hints at the fact that the kid was put in the washer. All of the comments are wondering "how did the mom not notice?"

The answer is obvious. Mom put the kid in the out-of-order machine for a "SWEET TWITTERPIC OP!" or some crap, and it turned on. Hero? methinks not.

Your child is spinning inside a metal drum. Do you:

1. Smash the container's glass door, turning the metal drum into a metal drum full of broken glass?
2. Unplug the machine.

Flakeloaf: Your child is spinning inside a metal drum. Do you:

1. Smash the container's glass door, turning the metal drum into a metal drum full of broken glass?
2. Unplug the machine.

I think it would have been better for the mom to open the door and hand the girl the wrench so that she could break the glass outward.

Thank god the kid survived, otherwise i'd go to hell for laughing at that headline. Same for all of you :)

Witchyman: Louisiana_Sitar_Club: Flakeloaf: Your child is spinning inside a metal drum. Do you:

1. Smash the container's glass door, turning the metal drum into a metal drum full of broken glass?
2. Unplug the machine.

I think it would have been better for the mom to open the door and hand the girl the wrench so that she could break the glass outward.

That's 'wrenched'.

Sorry, my bad. I don't know much about electrical work.

I'd like to address the last fact where the article tries to give mom credit for ABANDONED a terrified child to rummage around a car to find a wrench to BREAK THE GLASS of the window of a running front load washing machine with 5 year old tumbling inside. Nothing like adding a broken glass into that situation. I mean bead blasting the kid might be less painful but its probably a toss up.

Something wrong with UNPLUGGING it? Then Maybe break the glass if all else fails? Am I missing something?

Wow. Apparently this stupid child selected a commercial washing machine which still had time left on the meter and also had an inoperable handle. What a coincidence.

seems a lot of you were never poor/college students. The plugs are often behind an entire wall of machines. You can't access them. Though yes, there is often a "stop cycle" button which will stop the spin and drain the machine.

Grables'Daughter: IronMyno: I'd like to address the last fact where the article tries to give mom credit for ABANDONED a terrified child to rummage around a car to find a wrench to BREAK THE GLASS of the window of a running front load washing machine with 5 year old tumbling inside. Nothing like adding a broken glass into that situation. I mean bead blasting the kid might be less painful but its probably a toss up.

Something wrong with UNPLUGGING it? Then Maybe break the glass if all else fails? Am I missing something?

[4.bp.blogspot.com image 400x266]

How, exactly, do you go about unplugging one of these?

They all have plugs. Or, if it's too time consuming to move the damned thing to unplug it, there's these nifty whizbang devices called circuit breakers...I hear they're putting them in these days.

altinos: Grables'Daughter: IronMyno: I'd like to address the last fact where the article tries to give mom credit for ABANDONED a terrified child to rummage around a car to find a wrench to BREAK THE GLASS of the window of a running front load washing machine with 5 year old tumbling inside. Nothing like adding a broken glass into that situation. I mean bead blasting the kid might be less painful but its probably a toss up.

Something wrong with UNPLUGGING it? Then Maybe break the glass if all else fails? Am I missing something?

[4.bp.blogspot.com image 400x266]

How, exactly, do you go about unplugging one of these?

They all have plugs. Or, if it's too time consuming to move the damned thing to unplug it, there's these nifty whizbang devices called circuit breakers...I hear they're putting them in these days.

In fairness, if it's a public laundromat I'm guessing the breaker panel is in a place customers either can't get to or don't know about or both. The power of Panic Mom Strength pulling the machine out from the wall a few inches should be more than enough to reveal enough of the electrical connection for her to grab onto and fry herself.

IronMyno: I'd like to address the last fact where the article tries to give mom credit for ABANDONED a terrified child to rummage around a car to find a wrench to BREAK THE GLASS of the window of a running front load washing machine with 5 year old tumbling inside. Nothing like adding a broken glass into that situation. I mean bead blasting the kid might be less painful but its probably a toss up.

Something wrong with UNPLUGGING it? Then Maybe break the glass if all else fails? Am I missing something?

You don't sound like you've been to many laundromats. I've never seen a plug. And a little girl in California died after about two minutes in a washer a couple of years ago. Why waste time trying to pull a giant commercial washer away from the wall? Your kid's in trouble - break the glass and get her out. Cuts will heal. A blunt force trauma to her head will kill her instantly. And that's going to happen about 120 seconds after you realize she's even stuck.

The breaker would be the second thing to look for. Thanks altinos. My kid is 4 and yes he has tried to crawl in at the Laundromat. I raised his awareness to how they work by helping load the laundry, soap and his favorite part the quarters. I let him turn it on, the whole works. Once on, he asked me what would happen if he tried to open the door. I said well it might spill out all over the floor huh? He of course thought that would be cool and proceeded to yank on the door and seemed very disappointed when it held fast. I told him some bright Design Engineer smarter than his daddy put a lock on it so little boys like him didn't open them in mid cycle. I did mention that it would kill his ass if he was stuck in there. So don't even think about climbing in.. said in full tennor daddy is the boss voice and the evil eye thrown in for effect. He STILL doesn't buy it. Caught him climbing into Grandma's LG front loader a few months ago.
4 year olds have very very short memories.

/put wrench"ed" back in car or tie kid to laudry cart next time??

IronMyno: I'd like to address the last fact where the article tries to give mom credit for ABANDONED a terrified child to rummage around a car to find a wrench to BREAK THE GLASS of the window of a running front load washing machine with 5 year old tumbling inside. Nothing like adding a broken glass into that situation. I mean bead blasting the kid might be less painful but its probably a toss up.

Something wrong with UNPLUGGING it? Then Maybe break the glass if all else fails? Am I missing something?

Breaking the glass, and pulling your kid through the jagged-edged hole causing a 10" gash, along with other cuts to both mom and child. She didn't think of any better solution, like wrenching the controls off the machine and stopping it, if possible? Chopping off the power cord, if possible? Wrenching the door open, if possible? Throwing the breaker, if possible?

I would like to know she tried these things to get to her child. Instead of going straight to the re-birth from the spinning jaws of shattered glass through the jagged vag-window of hell scenario.

Maybe they need to bring back Punky Brewster to teach children about this sort of thing.

Another sad case of a parent contravening the laws of natural selection. Mommy just made Darwin cry!

All the plugs are exposed at the place I use. You can actually climb over the top of the washers and get behind them. They all discharge into a cement trough and you can work on back of the machine while standing in the trough. The plugs are visible and in the rear and they are not covered like in the pic Grables put up. Obviously in her pic the kid would be in deep dark shiat. Yes that would be what I missed

I agree i'd respond in a short period of time. I would not have presence of mine to get a wrench, or in my case a mag-lite... from my car. The benches at my place are bolted down. There would not be much at hand to get that door open.
I'd probly have to get the tire iron out of the car.

WOW... Grables... you are an unusually beautiful Farkette!

/Oh Man.. not even jokin'

subby I did this when I read your headline:

I remember the last time someone tried that.

/If it wasn't for the shiatty controls, this would be one of my favorites
//I'm not sure if the weird dialogue was intentional or a really bad translation job

robot_in_disguise:
You don't sound like you've been to many laundromats. I've never seen a plug. And a little girl in California died after about two minutes in a washer a couple of years ago. Why waste time trying to pull a giant commercial washer away from the wall? Your kid's in trouble - break the glass and get her out. Cuts will heal. A blunt force trauma to her head will kill her instantly. And that's going to happen about 120 seconds after you realize she's even stuck.

Source. It was "at least two mintues" of a washing machine alternately beating and drowning her to death.

Napkin math time, but I'm somewhat overcaffeinated so you may wanna check this:

A "large capacity" washing machine is about four cubic feet, which is .113 cubic metres in rest-of-the-earth units.
With difficulty I can reach my arm all the way to the back of a frontloader's drum, a distance of about 60 cm.
(pi)(x^2) * .6m = .113 cubic metres; x = 24.5cm or so
That means the diameter of the drum is about 77 cm.
Google tells me an average washing machine spins at 1200 RPM, which means the outside of that drum would travel about fifteen and a half metres per second (really??). I'm gonna guess the washer won't hit that top speed with a full load of laundry, the water to wash it with and a 20kg child inside but it would probably leave one hell of a mark.

On the upside, any bleednig probably wouldn't stain her clothes.

Bah. Source is here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/08/girl-trapped-washing-machine_ n_1081658.html

also bleeding is spelled that way.

Grables'Daughter: You know, it occurs to me that since none of us was actually there, that the mother may have first tried to unplug the machine, find the breaker etc.

/just sayin'

This. And those of you saying "Watch your kid!", you probably don't have kids. They're amazingly fast little buggers and it's impossible to keep your eye on them every single second of every single day.

Seriously, go check parenting forums, there are TONS of stories of your average parent looking away for a split second and their kid getting into something before they even know what's up. My own daughter managed to slip out of the straps on her stroller without my realizing it and while I was cutting up some food for her in the food court she stood up and fell backwards out of her stroller onto the hard tile floor. She was fine thankfully, barely a bump (she's got a big, thick skull like her daddy).

Flakeloaf: Your child is spinning inside a metal drum. Do you:

1. Smash the container's glass door, turning the metal drum into a metal drum full of broken glass?
2. Unplug the machine.

Came for this. Satisfied, I shall take my leave.

Flakeloaf: Your child is spinning inside a metal drum. Do you:

1. Smash the container's glass door, turning the metal drum into a metal drum full of broken glass?
2. Unplug the machine.

I shall add my snark about how hard it is to get to the plugs for these machines, especially if the double-stack washers shown in the article. And full of water/child? Its hard enough moving a single washer full of water, double stacks are HEAVY!!

My first thought on this was "Latches are made of plastic!! Crack it open!" but that's mostly residential machines. A few commercial machines do have some heavy-duty latches on them. So, good thinking on the mom...

/Any witnesses? Why am I thinking mom broke the machine on accident and is just using the kid...

Allright, little kids are quicker than their parents and this one got into a machine. Who put the quarters in and started it ??

PghThermal: Allright, little kids are quicker than their parents and this one got into a machine. Who put the quarters in and started it ??

Probably mom. I don't check to see if there are any kids under my laundry before starting it - but a five year old would take up about a quarter of the drum so...?

My question is - does the laundromat not have an attendant and/or a Big Red Button?

PghThermal: Allright, little kids are quicker than their parents and this one got into a machine. Who put the quarters in and started it ??

It's possible that even though it malfunctioned it still had time on it from a previous attempt. Maybe it just wasn't latched the first time, causing them to think it was broken, but when the kid climbed in it knocked something back into place and the machine started running again? Entirely feasible.

Listen, not a year goes by, not a year, that I don't hear about some washing machine accident involving some bastard kid which could have easily been avoided had some parent - I don't care which one - but some parent conditioned him to fear and respect that washing machine.

That's no good. http://youtu.be/1Anu4aTK7UE

"it's unclear if the girl climbed in herself or was put inside the malfunctioning machine"

I climbed in a washing machine when I was 5, no biggy. Though how on earth it got turned on I can't say...

Kids need to learn that it's more fun to sit on top of the drying machine while it's on a heavy cycle.

Although I guess they should wait til at least 18 for that.

Washing the dog! Washing the dog!

They don't put plugs or circuit breakers where the public can get at them.

This mom didn't think. She just reacted, instinctively, to get the kid at now. Rather than run around trying to get someones help while her child was beaten to death and drowned, she broke the machine and got the kid out. She probably had superhuman strength at that moment, because those glass windows are not easy to break and the door lock when the machine is in cycle.