But a couple things are bugging me:
The first is the obvious one: the fryer didn't attack the little girl. I'll state it bluntly: one or both parents were negligent in leaving a freakin' deep fryer within reach of a kid not even 2 years old. (Seriously, how tall is a 22 month old? How hard is to keep a deep fryer out of reach? Or just, y'know, not allow her in the kitchen while it's in use, or not use it in the first place if she's going to be near it?). How is this fundamentally different from leaving a pill bottle or a loaded gun within reach of a 2 year old?
Second, what has become of journalism? I know this isn't exactly a new lament, but gawd, what is the point of this article? To drum up sympathy and help the GoFundMe? Not a bad goal, but not journalism either. And the first sentence, phrased such that blame falls on an inanimate object...
Please forgive my grumpiness tonight. Maybe I just need to vent a bit.
But more than the above, I'm struggling with my own emotions tonight: I want for this little girl to recover with every fiber of my being, while simultaneously hoping one or both of her parents are wracked with the worst kind of guilt. Not very Christian of me. I can't reconcile the two. Maybe it's related to not having had much sleep in a few weeks.
I dunno. Thoughts?
We should ban deep fryers, pintos, teslas, wood stoves, pressure cookers, athletic equipment, and all bats even the not athletic ones.
Maybe we can ban dihydrogen monoxide, or if not just tax the f$$# out of it.
Good observations, rotten parents.
Thoughts- horrible that this happened. Sickening that it was preventable.
But the comment in the video that encourages people to switch from a deep fryer to an air fryer? They get tremendously hot, too, and could cause damage to a toddler. The only difference is that the air fryer doesn’t spill heated liquid.
Neither should be in the reach of a small child.
I agree that something is amiss here. If the
fryer were the type I use, a toddler would
have some difficulty in moving it off the
countertop, as there’s nothing a small hand
could get a grip on. Second, it would
basically need to be lifted. Third, the
outside surface would be hot enough that a
young one would recoil their grasp and let
go.(kind of like touching an oven door).
Just my opinion, as there’s been 7 grandkids
in the kitchen, while I’m cooking (cookie
time). Gotta watch them like a hawk.
I went to a lot of calls that resulted in serious injuries many to children that were caused by maddening stupidity and recklessness. Then I think back on all the idiotic things that I have done that resulted in injuries to myself or very narrowly avoiding death. Some of them are almost funny, but I would not even want to go into most of them here. I certainly am not willing to point any fingers especially based on a poorly written 3rd party account. I just pray for the recovery of the little one.
Good heavens, I look after my CATS better than these 2 idiots look after their baby. I keep my cats out of the kitchen altogether by the use of a high cat gate so that they will not be exposed to walking on a hot stovetop, getting sprayed by hot grease, eating things toxic to cats, or knocking down breakable stuff. This story sounds really fishy. In any event, I hope the baby recovers quickly, poor thing.
When I was a toddler we lived in a small house that was built on the side of a hill above a busy 4 lane street that was one of the main arterials in our town. In the summer my parents left the door open to keep it cool. My mom was telling my wife how I kept riding my tricycle down the set of concrete stairs. My wife said did you ever get a baby gate or something? My mom said no, we thought that he would learn.
And of course I did. I finally figured out how to get up dust myself off without making any noise and ride the rest of the way down the hill, across the busy street and then down it. I made it a couple of blocks before someone caught me. A policeman saw my mom frantically trying to find me. He gave my mom a ration of crap but this was long before CPS and the like. Besides my mom was extremely pretty and could talk her way out of anything if a man was involved.
Agree! How was this fryer accessible to a 2-year-old!
You and me, too, brother!
Regards,
I did something similar when 2 years old - father was boiling eggs on Sunday morning. Nom was at church, reached up and grabbed handle of pot and poured boiling water on my chest and arms
Still have scars over 60 years later
I dont believe the adults.
My hubby has burn scars all over his chest and back and they took skin from the back of his legs to graft. He reached up on the stove and flipped a cast iron pan with fried chicken and cooking oil when he was 6. That was 1954. So yes, it happens.
In the future, all fryers will have to be conical shaped so they can’t be tipped over.
They will be limited capacity and only fry one item at at time, for safety.
They will fry at 100 degrees.
The instruction manual will be larger and the first 100 pages will be safety instructions in large letters.
They will be all electric so no open flames.
The will use air instead of oil.
They will be expensive and illegal so folks will fry with oil on the stove.
I’m not sure about all the services, but I know the Coast Guard does not use Deep Fat fryers any longer they removed them from their ships and other shoreside facilities, maybe 10 years ago.
I also remember when I was a military cook and Bic lighters first came out there were cooks would put their lighters in their shirt pocket and after one or two of those Bic’s slipped out of their shirt pockets into the deep fat fryer KABOOM and they were pretty much banned from cooks and if they wanted to light there smokes they switched back to using regular old NAPHTHA fluid lighters.
The frier was probably on the island or a penninsula with the cord plugged into the outlet on the side of the cabinet.
The child prolly grabbed the cord and pulled it down onto herself.
We, as kids, were taught 70 years ago not to grab skillet handles on the stove.
Have we forgot to teach the kids these rules and have we forgotten to move such things out of the way of kids?
They seem to have a GoFundMe page:
https://www.gofundme.com/f/sweet-amaras-burn-unit-recovery/donations
I thought that’s why they made the cords on these types of appliances so short; so that they would not dangle off of counter-tops. That being said, the parents should have more awareness of the dangers in the kitchen and what their children are doing when things are being cooked, boiled,etc. However, I know how quick children that age can be.
When I was about twelve, some friends of my parents had twin boys at about two years of age. One of the boys did this exact same thing and had second and third degree burns on his chest, stomach, and legs. He survived, but had to have several surgeries. After that, he was always the smaller of the twins. That instance stuck in my mind and I’ve always been super careful with children in the kitchen.
“It happened so fast, like within less than five seconds, we had taken our eyes off her for maybe a split second to get something out of the cupboard and it happened like that,”
Variations on that sentence have been uttered probably a million times. Toddlers are quick, and most of the time, quiet about it when they are interested in something. You gotta watch ‘em like a hawk.
God help the family.
Second, what has become of journalism?
__________________________________
Local TV news journalism sucks.
This is a personal pet peeve of mine and has been for years. TV journalism all over the country is pathetic. Anytime you see a badly written article, you can bet the farm it was produced by a local TV station.
And it makes no difference if the TV station is in a top ten market or maybe Wherever, MN; it will be bad.