What seemed like a "new and cool" home upgrade nearly turned into a tragedy for one family in Conifer, Colo., and mom Lindsey McIver is now speaking out about it. In a Facebook post last Wednesday, McIver writes that she was somewhat reluctant to share her story due to fears of "the inevitable online mom-shaming," but that she felt like she needed to share "the danger of this machine"—her brand-new washing machine. On July 9 the family replaced their broken washer with a front-load model. The next morning the couple awoke to their 4-year-old son's cries. The words he managed to get out: "Kloe. Inside. Washer." They raced downstairs to find their 3-year-old daughter locked inside the airtight machine. There was roughly a pint of water inside and it was tumbling.
The girl's screams weren't audible outside, and McIver believes she had been in the machine for about two minutes. They were able to stop it, their daughter emerged unharmed, and they installed a child safety lock on the door—something McIver pushes others to do. She subsequently discovered the LG machine has a child-lock setting that, when activated, prevents the washer from being turned on, but it doesn't keep the door in a locked mode. "We don't want to slander the company," she tells USA Today. "But at some point, we'd like to propose they add [that] feature." She's not going to wait for it: The McIvers plan to swap the machine for a top loader. In a statement, LG "applaud[ed]" McIver for sharing her story. A rep for LG tells the Today Show the child lock feature it offers isn't required by law, but that "LG has proactively elected to add" it to its products. (More washing machine stories.)
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