SINGAPORE: A young girl had a harrowing experience when the glass shower door exploded while she was showering.
Chloe’s mother, Anna Ng, is grateful her 13-year-old daughter suffered only minor cuts. We might have just lost a daughter that night,” she said somberly.
@annang0 Thank God she only had minor scratches and cuts, it can get fatal. #glassshowerdoors #homeaccidents #fyp
On Saturday, 29 April, close to midnight, Anna Ng heard a loud noise from the third floor of her landed inter-terrace house in Loyang Rise while she was snuggling in bed with her younger daughter on the second floor.
“We heard a loud bang, sounded like some heavy appliance broke so I screamed out of my room at level 2 to ask, “what broke? Did anyone break my kitchen appliance?”” Anna shared with The Independent Singapore.
Her husband was watching TV on the first floor but remained silent. However, her elder daughter Chloe responded to her from the second floor. “It’s me. I am showering,” she said louder than usual but not screaming.
Anna asked again, “What broke then?” to which there was no response. She sensed something was amiss and ran up the stairs to check on Chloe.
“I saw her standing naked in the shower cubicle, wet hair plastered on her head. Her fingers and toe were bleeding, there were spots of blood on (the) floor, part of the glass door was shattered, and there were pieces on the floor. Some parts of the glass door continued to rain down on her before me,” she explained.
“My youngest daughter stood stunned at the sight,” she said.
Anna instructed Chloe to step out of the bathroom quickly as she was afraid more of the glass would explode, causing more injuries. She frantically asked her husband to grab a pair of slippers for Chloe to wear to step out of the bathroom safely and also made her younger daughter gather some clothes for her. Anna then stepped into the bathroom without slippers to help Chloe walk out.
“After she got out, I asked her to show me her full body to check in case of any glass pieces stuck to her body, I checked her scalp as well.” Anna ensured there were no glass fragments left on Chloe’s body.
Anna suspects the explosion might have been caused because Chloe “pulled the door too hard”. She speculated her daughter’s “preference for hot warm showers might have caused some pressure”.
She added that it also might have been because the toilet does not have a ventilator or window.
“However, Chloe did say she pulled the door pretty fast and it sort of went off track,” she said.
Anna shared that they bought the house on the resale market, and her family has been living there for about six months. She said the seller claimed the house was renovated about two years ago. Although the design of the toilet was “somewhat dated”, it seemed to be in good condition, so they only changed some parts, such as the toilet bowl, vanity top and the bathroom wooden door. They did not change the glass shower doors.
“I felt silly over this because I should have bought home insurance but was too busy with the renovation past months, actually forgot!” Anna said.
Anna said they had contacted a trusted contractor to do the cleaning and repairs. They have vacuumed the corridor outside the toilet and kept the bathroom locked.
“Frankly, even though we cleared the corridor that night and settled the house by 1 am, hubby and I were too shocked and didn’t manage to sleep until 2 am. We kept thinking what might have happened could be really fatal,” said Anna.
Anna took to TikTok to share this incident and warn other people about the possibility of such an accident.
Netizens shared similar incidents, and some blamed tempered glass as the culprit.
“Tempered glass does this when the temperature changes too quickly. Maybe the air was cold cause of aircon, then the heater too hot,” commented a user.
“We would recommend you go for tempered glass with frames instead. For frameless tempered glass, a slight chip can break the whole panel,” shared another user.
“My tempered glass cracked randomly. Luckily we pasted some sticker decor, holding the broken glass in place even though it cracked into pieces,” someone else said.
Anna said she would post a follow-up video on TikTok on how she “rectifies” the situation.