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Source = CNN
Girl rescued from washing machine
Sunday, May 25, 2003 Posted: 8:21 AM EDT (1221 GMT)
POMONA, California (AP) -- A 2-year-old girl was rescued from a locked, running washer at a coin laundry and her mother was arrested after a surveillance tape allegedly showed her putting the child into the machine, police said.
An officer smashed the window of the machine with his baton to rescue the girl, who was "submerged in water," police Sgt. Matt Stone said.
The child was unconscious when she was pulled from the washer Saturday but breathing. She was taken to a hospital where she was listed in serious condition with cuts, scrapes, bruises. She had inhaled some water but was expected to survive, Stone said.
Her mother, Erma Osborne, 35, of Pomona, California, later was arrested for investigation of child endangerment and held on $10,000 bail.
Surveillance camera footage showed that the woman placed her daughter in one washer, then removed her and placed her in a second front-loading washer, which turned on when she closed the door, Stone said.
"She wasn't drowned but she was getting there," Los Angeles County fire Capt. Dan Ramirez said.
The machine apparently locks automatically when the wash cycle begins and does not unlock until the cycle ends, Ramirez said.
Efforts by the girl's mother and bystanders to unlock the door failed.
Why does it say here in the last sentence that the girl's mother took part in the attempt to unlock the door? Why would she be caring to open the door at this point? Is it a typo, perhaps? If I would have been there, I would not have let the woman near the machine while others were trying to open it. I would have probably been ramming her into one myself!
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