A 5-year-old girl in Singapore had to have part of her finger amputated after injuring it while using an exposed hand dryer at ION Orchard shopping mall. As reported by CNA, the hand dryer didn’t have a vent covering on it and when she reached up to use it, her index finger was ‘mangled’ by the fan blades.
The incident happened last Monday (6 December 2021) when the family went to the mall for dinner. The girl’s father, Mr Chia shared on Facebook how there was no vent cover on a hand dryer machine and that from his daughter’s line of sight, she was able to see the base of the hand dryer housing itself with a large gaping hole.
Chia added,
“The little one, probably thinking it was a tissue dispenser or possibly even one of those Dyson ‘put your hand in’ kind of hand dryer, proceeded to put her hand in and her finger got mangled by the fan blades.”
The damage on the girl’s finger was extensive to the point that the hand dryer shattered the bones in her finger. Furthermore, when the technical crew and management staff arrived, they could not find the right keys to unlock the hand dryer’s housing and ended up prying open the entire cabinet.
She was then taken to KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital where part of her finger was amputated as doctors couldn’t ‘salvage’ the finger.
A spokesperson for ION Orchard said the shopping mall team rendered “immediate assistance” to the girl and sincerely regretted to learn of the incident. Furthermore, there are currently conducting investigations and as a precautionary measure, checked all the hand dryers in the mall to ensure their safety.
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Also read: BEWARE: 2-Year-Old in Ipoh Almost Drowns in House Pool, Saved by Mom Who Knows CPR
