Hair dryers are essential appliances in every home, but you still need to pay more attention to them when using them.
Recently, there was a very horrific accident in South Carolina, USA: a woman suddenly fainted while drying her hair at home, and the hair dryer caused her to burn from the heat and was forced to amputate her leg......
The victim of the accident, named Mary Wilson, was a pet groomer. In February, as usual, she showered before going to bed and then dried her hair in the bathroom.
However, for some reason, she suddenly fainted and fainted for about 20 minutes. Mary thought it was an electric shock from a hair dryer that caused her to pass out, but whatever the cause, those 20 minutes changed her life forever.
Unfortunately, when she fainted, one hand happened to be on the hair dryer, and the hot air was blowing continuously for 20 minutes. ...... And this is almost the equivalent of putting your own hands in the air fryer.
Twenty minutes later, Mary's partner found her lying on the floor and screamed, "Your hands, your hands!" Mary said, "I looked at my hands and didn't even realize they were part of my body and couldn't make out them." ”
She was then rushed to the hospital, but it was too late. "The hair dryer was blowing hot air all the time, which caused third-degree burns on my hands all the way to the bone. ”
Mary's nerve damage was so severe that she eventually had to undergo an amputation below the wrist...... Because of the accident, she was forced to give up her job as a pet groomer and had to put on a prosthetic leg to continue her life......
After the incident, Mary said that the hair dryer should have an automatic shut-off function like other hot hair tools.
"The straightener has this feature, it has ceramic plates and once it reaches a certain temperature, it shuts down. If I had a hair dryer, my injuries wouldn't have been so serious. ”
From a technical point of view, hair dryers can indeed achieve temperature control and automatic power-off functions. However, most hair dryers on the market today do not have similar safety protection. This also leads to serious consequences when an accident like Mary's happens......
And there are many accidents caused by hair dryers.
In 2022, there was a case related to hair dryers in Germany. At that time, a 93-year-old elderly woman washed her hair in a sanatorium in the town of Schwed.
However, when her caregiver placed her under the dryer in the room, the caregiver turned around and forgot about it. And the elderly woman suffers from dementia, which also means that she cannot escape from a high-powered hair dryer on her own......
Eventually, by the time the paramedics remembered the incident, her entire forehead was burned and yellow pus was leaking......
With such a big incident, these paramedics did not take her to the hospital in the first place, but only applied ointment to the burns and did not call an ambulance until the next day, causing serious delays. Despite the best efforts of the hospital medical staff, the elderly woman died 10 days after the incident.
Her 64-year-old daughter later complained to the police about manslaughter by nursing home staff and failure to provide assistance to her mother:
"If I had called a doctor immediately, my mother would not have had to endure this terrible pain...... The person who was supposed to take care of the mother failed to fulfill his duties and also tried to cover up his mistakes. ”
In the initial accident of Mary's amputation, in addition to the high temperature burns, there is another safety hazard that needs to be paid attention to, that is, electric shock...... According to her own account, she should have fainted because of a leak from her hair dryer.
It's possible.
In fact, because hair dryers are usually used in humid environments such as bathrooms, the probability of electric shock is much higher than that of ordinary appliances.
In 2017, Ms. Jiang from Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, was holding a hair dryer to dry her hair when several strands of hair were curled in. She said that before she could turn off the hair dryer and pull her hair out, an electric current was transmitted from her scalp to her body, causing her to feel numb all over her body, and she fell to the ground, and the hair dryer also fell off.
The family helped her up when they heard the noise, and she sat for a few minutes and started vomiting again, so she rushed to the hospital. But fortunately, the incident didn't do much damage to her in the end.
(Schematic diagram)
In some cases, the victims are not so "lucky".
In a tragic accident in Wisconsin, USA, a mother bathed her two children, one was six years old and the other was two years old.
She first took her two-year-old out to dry it, and when she returned to her room a few minutes later, she found that the hair dryer had fallen into the bathtub, the wires were soaked in the water, and the little girl who was left behind was unresponsive......
It is true that after all kinds of safety accidents, the current hair dryer has a certain degree of safety protection.
Some bathrooms will have a special hair dryer socket that is specially designed to cut off the circuit within milliseconds when a current leak is detected, reducing the risk of electric shock.
Some hair dryers also have special safety protection measures, using insulated and waterproof design to reduce the risk of electrical failure and electric shock caused by humidity or water splashing, and some hair dryers are overheated protection.
(Schematic diagram)
However, even with similar safety precautions, we still need to pay great attention to them in our daily use.
Check the hair dryer's cord and plug for damaged, frayed, or exposed wires before use, avoid touching the switch or plug with wet hands, and do not use the hair dryer near the sink.
In addition, in order to prevent other risks, you should also be careful not to use the hair dryer for a long time, do not block the vents when using the hair dryer, turn off the power in time after use, and unplug it.
After all, personal safety is such a thing, and it is impossible to pay too much attention to it......