Mother puts 2 year old in washing machine. WTF?

The BBQ Pit
81

It’s very strange that none of you have any more information about this than the barest of news reports, yet most of you are certain that the Mother should be imprisoned. The comments about the video footage reach much too far; all we know about that footage is that the Mother put her child into a washing machine, then another one. We don’t what the Mother was saying to the child as she did this (was it ‘all clean! Good girl!’ or ‘die baby die!’ slight difference…), we don’t know how the child was reacting (giggling or screaming with terror?), we don’t know how the child was behaving beforehand (was she acting up and the mother was desparate?), we don’t know how long she was left in the dryer, etc. We also don’t know anything about what the Mother’s like apart from this one incident.

I’d be worried about a child protection service that would remove a child from her home because of one mistake. Such behaviour would have to be typical of her parenting for removal to be in the best interests of the child.

I wouldn’t put my child into a washing machine, even as a joke, because I wouldn’t want her to learn that it’s safe to climb into washing machines. However, I wouldn’t expect the machine to switch on and start filling with water if the door closed! Because, as we all know, you can’t open a machine mid-cycle, so how come the machine was still ready to go?

Eats_Crayons is right, if there were a kill-switch then idiots would abuse it to get access to machines. But mentioned a laundry attendant with a key that stopped the machine mid-cycle - which probably means causing the machanism to stop and the water to be drained before the door opens, not just popping the door open straight away. Could a duplicate of that key be kept at the laundry, housed within the same sort of glass box that fire extinguishers are kept in? That way it could be accessed in a real emergency. It wouldn’t require retrofitting all machines, either.

Naturally, if it turns out the child was screaming with terror, and the mother was threatening her, then I take this all back. But, given the comment about the mother frantically trying to free the child, and the neighbours’ comments, and the not-guilty plea, that seems less likely.

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Eats_Crayons, Rigel Haloran, I’m glad you agree that an off-button is A Good Idea – where were you guys weeks ago when I was the only person here saying so, looking like a lunatic with no friends?

Amberlie, I’m guessing the woman made a stupid mistake, probably she was just playing with her kid (see Qadgop the Mercotan’s post early on page one).

Personally, I think a lawsuit is coming, the mother deserves nothing (maybe the kid does, though), but that doesn’t mean that she won’t win.

Taking her child from her? What? If it was just an honest-to-goodness stupid game gone wrong? Who’s going to benefit?
I’ve never done anything stupid either, honest.

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Argh, you know what I meant, ‘washing machine.’ I think perhaps this is a sign that I should go to bed.

84

There is a safety cut out on all drum type washing machines, it’s the door switch.
It is not made accessible to the public though, because the public does stupid things like bypass it, or damage it so it operates when the door is not fully closed.

If the machine were still rotating, the motor would be cut out, and on industrial machines there might be either a mechanical wrap around brake, or an dc motor injector brake, the latter being very expensive rare and very effective.

The upshot is that even if there was a stop button, the machine would still take time to run down- nothing stops instantly, the power would be off, and you still would not be able to open the door.

The stop button would be abused, imagine that someone cut the cycle short, like say after the first of three spins.
At present nearly all machines have a mechanical timer, lose power and it does not return to zero, it will resume from the point it was interrupted.
So we have our machine stopped, primed up and waiting to carry out the next spin cycle.
Next customer walks in, sees machine door open, loads in laundry. Whilst that persons hand are still in the machine, power is returned, not good.

How about, the machine is full of water and washing, some idiot decides it’s fun to hit the stop button and open the door, laundry room is flooded out, not a good thing for the proprietor, nor a good idea to have water, electrical machines, and Joe Public in the same place.

With electronic timers this would not happen, and stop command would halt the machine and drain it and set it back to the start of the program ie wait for more money.

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Read the many above posts, they’re proposing an emergency switch that stops the machine and drains the water. And my post did mention the basic fail-safes (like the doors switch that halts all agitation).

But like SciFiSam and I suggest, we’re thinking more of an a “in case of phenomenal, extraordinary stupidity or disaster break glass” type of switch.

Again, I worked in a woodshop where there was a master switch on the wall that affected all machines as well as the emergency kill-switch for each individual machine. Most colleges and high schoots with shops have a similar kill-switch.

If the bandsaw starts to cut off my fingers, I can hit the bandsaw kill-switch with my other hand. If my buddy is getting pulled into the drill press all the way across the room, there were several Big Switches on the wall that killed all the big machines - everything would shut down. Strictly for emergency use. Hitting that without cause would get you in as much trouble as pulling the fire alarm as a prank.

I’m wouldn’t suggest putting any kind of stop buttons on each and every machine – way, WAY too much likelihood of abuse from idiots goofing around. And certainly not where the average fool would have access to it.

But an emergency master switch (say similar to a fire alarm) could be at least worth considering for preventing serious disaster. Whether from a sadistic fuck who wants to drown his girlfriend’s puppy, to someone trying to deliberately damage machines, to shutting down a dryer that has burst into flames.

But certainly not something that any idiot could give a whack and then go “ha! ha!”

Again, I’m going with the precendent of a pseudo-public workshop where there was such a switch.

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Not to mention, don’t coins have to have been inserted to have caused the machine to start it’s cycle? (bear in mind that I’m from Anchorage, haven’t been to a laundry for years, and don’t know what kind of newfangled machines are available).

I too can SOMEWHAT see that she might have only been playing “let’s get clean” or some such, but can’t imagine shutting the door, or using a machine that already had coins or tokens inserted.

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I seem to remember it being a fad several years ago (ala “Jackass”) for HS and College kids to get into the big industrial dryers and “ride” them.

I have no idea where I heard this, it could very well just be an urban legend.

I think that’s where the “no people in the machines” signs came from though.

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I trust it is standard practice, everywhere, that a machine will not operate with its door open!?

Oh,… you said that in your opening paragraph – “There is a safety cut out on all drum type washing machines, it’s the door switch.”

DOES NOT COMPUTE:
DOES NOT COMPUTE:
EXPLODES:
etc…