This is from the Saint Paul Pioneer Press for December 1. A young life was extinguished due to the lack of a $10 GFI.
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The death of a 6-year-old Hudson girl in a bathtub offers a sad lesson about the dangers of using electrical appliances near water, officials say.
Chelsea Joe "Princess" Helland was found with a hair dryer in the water-filled tub, and a medical examiner's report shows a high probability she died from electrocution, said interim Police Chief Eric Atkinson.
Emergency personnel responded to the apartment complex about 7 p.m. Sunday.
According to police, the mother told officers the girl and her 2-year-old sister were in the tub when the mother briefly left the room. When she saw the toddler was out, she went to check on the other girl and found her unresponsive in the bathtub with the hair dryer.
The mother, her boyfriend, paramedics and police officers tried to revive the girl, but she was pronounced dead at Hudson Hospital.
Atkinson said he thinks a ground fault circuit interrupter installed in the outlet or contained in the dryer would have prevented the tragedy.
According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, a GFCI in a home wiring system constantly monitors the flow of electricity and instantly switches off power if there is any loss of current. That can prevent a person from getting a lethal jolt.
"I believe that if there would have been a GFCI outlet or mini-GFCI in the hair dryer, we wouldn't be where we are today," Atkinson said.
The girl's funeral was Friday in White Bear Lake.
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If the tub has no metallic connection to anything, a GFCI may not prevent this type of tragedy. Some hair dryers have Immersion-detector circuit interrupters (IDCIs) which can prevent this type of accident.
A very sad tragic event surely. What could one do to prevent it?
Was this a rental? Trivial I know ,after a loss such as this.
Are the authorities to inspect rentals before each change of hands? Annual house inspections? Make all safety changes,AS important as GFCI retroactive?
I have not the answer,But thought Ideas may be out there.
... Some hair dryers have Immersion-detector circuit interrupters (IDCIs) which can prevent this type of accident.
I was going to say, whatever happened to IDCI's? There was a lot of talk about them at one point. Now I never hear about them. Am I just out of touch (which is entirely possible)?
Have you ever seen Joe Tedesco's videos of hotel hair dryers motor boating around in the sink. It is clear immersion detectors don't always work.
It is also clear he gets bored on the road
Dang Greg ya beat me i was just about ready to reply that comment related to Joe Tedesco testing the hair dryer i think he did took a veido of it.
i am not sure if he left a link somewhere in this forum or other forum iam not sure excat location is.
Merci , Marc
Greg,
It is clear immersion detectors don't always work.
Not really...the device is in the handle and it was not under water.
Don
I'm torn on this one. I really want to rip into the manufacturer for installing a safety device that requires a specific circumstance for the so-called immersion detector to work, i.e. the handle must be in the water for the device to work. On the other hand I realize that we can't protect everyone, everywhere from everything that could possibly go wrong.
One would think that an electric device that is labeled as having a certain protective mechanism could be relied upon to protect you in your time of need.
It's a tragedy what happened to this girl and her family and I can only hope that manufacturers have another look at how these immersion detectors are designed and installed.
Shawn.
Don, the ones I have taken apart have a metal ring in the nozzle that connects to the 3d wire in the cord that hits the immersion detector.
Greg,
I guess there are different designs. Another issue is that immersion detectors are not required. The manufacturer can use GFCIs or appliance leakage circuit interrupters. The only one that will provide protection when there is no grounding path in the water in the immersion detector.
Don
GFCI is supposed to save everyone since the person being shocked supplies the grounding path. I am not thrilled with that scenario but, if the GFCI is actually working that is only a 5ma shock for a short time.
I blame the parent, not the hair dryer.
Greg,
GFCI is supposed to save everyone since the person being shocked supplies the grounding path.
If there is no grounding path then the GFCI will not provide protection. If you place a two wire appliance in the water where there is no metal piping or other path to ground, the GFCI will not trip, but there may be enough current flowing in the water to kill. This is really the same as when you are touching the hot and neural...the GFCI does not provide protection.
Don
I just checked my hair dryer. I can plug it in above the vanity and it will touch the bottom of the tub. If my 5 year old angel lived here, I would cut the cord a few inches below the GFCI module. I would shorten the cord and splice, solder and heat shrink it so it couldn't reach the tub without yanking the plug out.
I'm not saying that this happened in this case but in today's society, more and more barbarians are murdering their children rather than finding loving homes for them. They say that many cases of SIDS are really murder. Not too far from me a woman murdered her two small children and actually set her home on fire to cover it up. So whether it's a cop's 3rd wife drowning in an empty bathtub or a child being electrocuted in one, I sure hope there is physical evidence on the scene to support it.
Joe
Don, you still need a current path through the body and that is usually to ground somewhere.
The L/N path would not go through the body in this scenario.
We already know there wasn't a GFCI and I am betting the ALCI in the plug was either bad or not there at all
Atkinson said he thinks a ground fault circuit interrupter installed in the outlet or contained in the dryer would have prevented the tragedy.
On a hairdryer my mom had when I was little I saw a tag with the usual warnings including this one: "WARN CHILDREN ABOUT THE DANGER OF DEATH DUE TO ELECTRIC SHOCK" My parents did a good job of this obviously.....
My opinion:
When designing the bathroom, one should not locate any receptacle on the same side of the room as the tub or shower unless it is greater than 6 feet away from the tub or shower. Since most dryer cords are 6 feet, this would fix the problem.
But what about the sink?
Shocks through an energized sink are probably less likely to be fatal due to the reflex reaction that would occur when someone put their hand in the sink that was energized. Mechanically (ease of escape) and electrically (less contact surface area) the sink scenario is less dangerous. It would probably knock you on your butt though and you could kill yourself by whacking your head....
Oh well.... you can't save every idiot. Natural selection WILL occur and there's no way to stop it.
No amount of well thought out device placement will fix stupid.
Much as we all deplore tragedy .... there's only so much that can be done. Sometimes, "stuff" happens. Other times, attempts to eliminate one danger create others. There is also the influences of 'progress' and 'change.'
I remember when bathrooms typically had NO receptacle. Or, if there was one, it was in the side of the light. Indeed, my own bath has no receptacle, but for the one in the light.
Of course, those were also the days before the electric toothbrush, the hair dryer, the towel warmer, the curling iron, the curler heater, etc. All that got plugged in was an electric razor.
Another 'detail' is bathroom size. I recently read an article specifically about designing 'small' bathrooms. Their smallest was at least 50% larger than mine .... and mine is larger than some I've used!
Finally, there is the issue of bathroom remodels. This forum has posted several pics of baths whose receptacles became located above the tub - when the 'standard' tub was replaced with a wider whirlpool tub.
There is only so much you can do ....
We keep glossing over the real issue. Why didn't they have a GFCI? That seems to be the common denominator in most electrocution stories.
We keep glossing over the real issue. Why didn't they have a GFCI? That seems to be the common denominator in most electrocution stories.
Either the house didn't come with one and one was never installed, or:
"The GFCI keeps tripping when I plug in my 20 year old blow dryer!" "Must be something wrong with it, I'll get Joe-handy to put a normal outlet in..."
Ian A.
It's a tragedy, but ultimately there is only so much we can do. The report says the mother left the bathroom "briefly," but we don't really know how long that was. Was the hair dryer already plugged in and lying nearby so the girl could grab it easily? Did she fetch it from elsewhere, plug it in, then climb back into the tub to use it? Perhaps a GFCI would have saved her, but then so would being taught not to use a hair dryer in the tub. I wonder if this was a one-off occurrence or if she had used the dryer in there before, or seen her mother do so.
Over here in the U.K. we've had the "no sockets in the bathroom" rule for decades. Our new code due out next year is to allow them though, but only if placed more than 3m (~10 ft.) from the edge of the shower or tub (which means that the average size British bathroom will still be "no sockets," since they're not that large). The outlets will be required to have 30mA RCD (GFCI) protection.
Greg,
Don, you still need a current path through the body and that is usually to ground somewhere.
The L/N path would not go through the body in this scenario.
There in no need for a path to ground to get a fatal shock. The two conductors in the isolated water set up a voltage gradient in the water. There will be current flowing in the water. The wet person will be a parallel path. It is possible that the parallel path through the person could flow enough current to be fatal. If the water is isolated, a GFCI will not prevent this. Maybe we need to bond the water in the tub as will be required for pools in the 2008 code.
Don
If there was a GFCI that didn't trip I might agree with you but without a GFCI the most likely current path is through the cast iron tub to ground.
If there was a GFCI that didn't trip I might agree with you but without a GFCI the most likely current path is through the cast iron tub to ground.
Greg.,, now you make me ask this one what if the tub is fiberglassed or plastic and the water supply pipes is all plastic like PLEX type ?? that one part it puzzle me a but but try to think a comquest the idea from the swimming pool related to the voltage gradeuet Vs. of the source.
Merci, Marc
Hello from South Dakota!!!
I have an 11yr old, 8yr old, and 2yr old running around in my house right now. If this poor womans life is anything like ours, this is the way I see this playing out;
2yr old and 6yr old in the bathtub while mom is doing her hair getting ready for church. Mom needs make-up out of her purse and goes to get it (leaving hair dryer on the ede of the sink).
2yr old gets tired of being the tub and gets out. As the 2yr old gets out of tub she accidentally knocks hair dryer off of the sink edge and into tub, killing her sister.
2yr old runs naked into the living room where Mommy is standing looking into her little pocket mirror putting on her make-up. Mommy puts on the baby's diaper and goes to check on the 6yr old. (This is where the Mother dies in her heart)!
Every day we as individuals, and as a society, do stupid little things that don't always stike us as stupid until something horible happens. It is our responsibility as parents to teach our children the best we can, and in my opinion, it is our duty to teach our fellow man with the knowledge that has been granted us.
Jon