Image: Calhoun County Sheriff's Office
A mother in Arkansas, USA has been arrested nine months after she found her three-year-old child dead in a washing machine.
While twenty-five-year-old Brooke Haney was napping, her daughter, Alexis Haney, had climbed into the washing machine and closed the lid, causing the machine to automatically turn on. She died soon afterwards from ‘scalding and thermal injuries’, authorities report.
In an interview with one of her other children, a seven-year-old, she revealed that she and Alexis would often help their mum with the laundry and they would climb in the washing machine to get the clothes. They had programmed the washing machine to turn on automatically when they closed the door.
Brooke Haney was charged with two counts of endangering the welfare of a minor in two separate incidents last year, in which she was under the influence of prescription drugs.
Haney is set to appear in court August 10, and The Washington Post reports she is expecting her next child next month.
In Australia, Kidsafe advises parents that the most common household causes of child deaths are:
– Transport related (eg. car crashes)
– Drowning (particularly in pools)
– Unsafe sleeping environments
– Strangulation/suffocation (through being trapped in a small space/strangulation through blind cords)
– Crush injuries (eg. large objects falling on children)
