SaferProducts incident

Failure type

Explosion / rupture

Incident narrative

SaferProducts.gov consumer incident report 20190901-BFB9E-2147377947. Severity: Injury, No First Aid or Medical Attention Received. Product: Delta SGCC-5196-6mm-U-A, ANSI Z97.1-2009 16 CFR 1201 II (Tempered glass shower door). Incident: Few minutes after 5am this morning, one panel of my glass shower door "exploded" and shattered into small pieces of sharp glasses and tiny, powder-like sharp glass pieces were flown out of the bathtub/shower and out to the hallway. See attached photo. No one was touching it, tugging it or even near the door. Delta website warns not to do certain things to avoid the explosive breakage but it was spontaneous without any provocation. Luckily, no one was in the shower at that time but if it occurred in only few minutes later, those sharp glass pieces would have launched onto my skin. The "explosion" set off the burglar alarm. My hands and toes got few minor cuts while trying to clean up all the small glass pieces all over the bathroom. It is nearly impossible to safely clean all small glass pieces and even after sweeping the floor with wet paper towel for 10 times, there are still tiny glass pieces everywhere. I am attaching a photo of [REDACTED] surface where you can see the tiny pieces of glasses after 10th sweep (after wet paper towels) - Please, zoom in to see the glass pieces! This is a dangerous product but after some research, it appears that there maybe a safety film or glazing solution that may prevent the shards of sharp glass pieces from flying out to cause injury. I feel that all manufacturers of temper glass shower doors should be required to incorporate a similar safety measure to prevent injuries.