SaferProducts incident

Failure type

Fire / ignition

Incident narrative

SaferProducts.gov consumer incident report 20140617-CDF9C-1409947. Severity: Injury, First Aid Received by Non-Medical Professional. Product: Shark (www.sharkcompany.com) G1468NN (Iron). Incident: This caller purchased her iron in March 2010 and had no problems with it until June 8th, 2014 when she was ironing a pair of pants after plugging in only a few seconds before ironing. She had ironed one leg of the pants and was beginning the second leg when fire shot from where the cord connects into the iron and engulfed her left arm up to the elbow. She screamed which alerted her husband who came running into the room, pulled the plug from the wall and rushed his wife into the bathroom. Her arm from the hand to the elbow was black. She continuously washed her left arm with anti bacterial soap and putting [REDACTED] then per a doctor's advice by phone she switched to [REDACTED] with pain re leif. The caller was in pharmaceutical sales for years, she was aware that the main worry is infection whenever skin is burned and so is watching it carefully. The skin of her arm is no longer black and is healing well. She is reporting to inform the public of the burn danger with this product. She contacted the manufacturer on June 10th, 2014 and June 11th, 2014 but has been trying not to return the iron to them because she is under the impression that a report was already filed with CPSC. I found no report before this one. She said that someone named [REDACTED] or [REDACTED] contacted her but I also found no one in the Virginia area who would have contacted her from CPSC by that name.