A family is suing Whirlpool, claiming a defective refrigerator overheated and killed a man with a fireball.
WSJM reports that Ashley Alvin Walker a North Carolina man died in 2012, after opening the freezer door to see what was causing the appliance to smoke. That move added oxygen to the fire, sending a massive fireball at him.
The claim, filed by Jane Walker Payne in Randolph County Superior Court, says that the fridge overheated more than 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit because it had a defective heating element pin in its icemaker, Courthouse News Service reported.
Walker bought the fridge in March 2002. The family claims the appliance had warranty repairs, but nevertheless a short occurred in the heating element in January 2012.
It began to smoke, setting off the fire alarm in Walker’s house.
He saw the smoke and opened the freezer door causing a backdraft – so much oxygen was re-introduced to the fire when the door open that it sent a fireball at Walker.
The fireball burned Walker’s face and body and damaged his lungs, the family says.
“In what must have been extreme agony, decedent managed to pull himself from his kitchen to the front door,” the complaint states. “Eventually, he was rushed to the hospital by emergency personnel, but unfortunately, it was too late. He died later that day from his injuries. His death certificate lists the cause of death as ‘acute thermal injury.'”
Much of his home and belongings burned in the fire.
His family says Whirlpool cut corners and sacrificed quality. They are seeking compensatory and punitive damages for negligence, failure to warn, breach of warranty and negligent repair.
The suit says major appliances cause 150,000 fires each year.
Whilst this is a tragic story, we find some elements of it to be bordering on unbelievable.
For a start, if an element is defective then generally speaking it will not heat at all, it will go open circuit and any heating taking place will stop. So that seems to us to be a bit far fetched as a cause.
If a thermostat failed causing the heater to heat all the time then, the heater would act like a fuse and blow eliminating any serious danger.
Defrost elements are usually covered in ice or water as well so, how it could get to that sort of temperature (even if it were possible) is currently a complete mystery.
But for an defrost element to produce the sort of heat being mooted in this action is just staggeringly unbelievable as almost all are designed to run at comparatively low voltages and, for only short periods to defrost any ice. That makes it very difficult to believe that the fridge was indeed the cause of this tragedy.
It will be interesting to hear the outcome of this case and find out if it truly was the Whirlpool fridge at fault or, if as we suspect, that there were other factors in play.