This weekend I had a pretty scary and very painful incident with getting a towelette dispenser stuck on my finger (product is Cutter Backwoods Mosquito Wipes). I have two bruise points on the first knuckle of my right hand index finger
that look like the entry points for where a dull-toothed Dracula may have tried to suck my blood. I am surprised that my finger is not much more seriously damaged.
For those that may have used cleaning wipes or baby wipes, some of these dispensers have holes coming out of the top of the dispenser with plastic teeth all around the inner circumference that grip the towelettes as they come up through the hole. When towelettes come up through the hole, I (now) presume that people are not supposed to stick their fingers back into the hole to push things back in. As I might do with a Kleenex box at home, I tried to push back in a towelette after two too many came out.
*Very* wrong thing to do. The hole in this case is just a little larger than the size of my index finger, plus the killer here was that the teeth were both pointed and the plastic was much stiffer than other product packaging I’ve encountered. It was *not* just a matter of getting my finger stuck and waiting for the right solution to present itself. My finger was turning purple, and the teeth created a lot of pain just by waiting around. As I tried to get the product off of my finger, the teeth dug into my finger harder – I imagine that the experience would be similar to the difficulty to get a barbed arrowhead out of your body (in the direction of the entry point) upon penetration. The temptation was to push or twist, but this only drove my index finger in further. My wife tried to help me with a blunt butter knife as a wedge … after two to three more fractic attempts of finding something to get the thing off my finger, luckily my wife finally found a needle nose set of pliers laying nearby that we could use to bend the stiff teeth away from my finger. A bit of an emotional release on my part after the whole thing was over and done with.
I personally think that the product packaging on this Cutter product should be recalled (or the the product packaging should be modified with softer and/or non-pointed teeth). That said, sentence number seven on the back label of the Cutter product does say, "Do Not push finger through lid opening".
When do (generally) sensible people become stupid? When do products need to be modified for safety reasons? Would your answer change if it were a child’s finger that got stuck in the story I recounted?
How Should Product Safety Concerns Be Addressed
This consumer reports on a design problem with a towel dispenser and asks the question: what to do about it?…
Steve — the SAME exact thing happened to me this Sunday. I got my finger stuck inside the Cutter lid. It was scary and painful. My husband was there and he franticly tried to ply it off and then cut it off with scissors. Finally, he had the sense to squirt liquid soap around the “teeth” and was able to slip it off. I called the company today to complain and let them know about this danger. The woman said she’d heard this complaint before and referred me to the “Do not push finger through lid opening” phrase. But, hey, should a consumer have to be wary of things that should be as innocuous as a wipe lid? I was unsatisfied with my phone call so I googled “Cutter ‘mosquito wipes’ finger stuck” and found your post. Just want to share the love – or the pain. Jennie
I’m glad that you got the lid off. What a crazy thing, huh? I haven’t gotten that mad about a product in a long time. There was no way soap was going to work for me, my finger was jammed in so far (because I thought I could get the teeth to unhook from my skin by moving the lid further in and then quickly rotating the lid off). I never have imagined losing a finger or an appendage in my entire life until that incident. At that time, the possibility flashed immediately into my mind. It was scary, and I got frantic. I’m generally not a person that loses my cool, but I had my moment.
I suspect this type of packaging is just inviting more accidents. I was thinking of calling customer support too, but I didn’t think I had enough energy to make a difference.
Thanks for commenting on this. I’m glad all is well.
OMG! I had to google this problem and see if anyone else had it! Being a professional with a postgraduate degree, I like to think that I am an intelligent woman,….still, 45 minutes ago, I was writhing in pain, franically trying to get my finger loose from the plastic teeth on the lid of Albertson’s disinfecting wipes that were digging into my flesh! I had reached in with the index finger of my right hand to “fish out” the first wipe and when I tried to pull it out, I found my finger ensnared like in one of those chinese finger traps…only with teeth! The harder I tried to escape, the deeper the teeth dug, turning my finger purple and blue and making marks deep into my skin.
I can assure you that I generally have a high tolerance for pain, but this had me frantically scrambling for the scissors, as the circulation was being cut off from my finger. Let me tell you, when you are right handed, it is very difficult to cut hard plastic with your left hand! (Especially as you are trying to avoid the accidental amputation of a nearby finger!)
In another day or two, I will probably be able to laugh about it (assuming I still have the use of my finger!). I must have been quite a sight and who on earth (besides us???) has ever gotten trapped in such a way??? I do agree with you, though; those lids certainly do seem to be a hazard.
Of course, now that I look at the packaging, it DOES say…in CAPITAL letters….”DO NOT PUSH FINGER THROUGH SLITS.” Oh, yeah….I know that NOW!
Kimberly, I hope everything turns out ok. I remember being very angry after my incident.
I should share an update to this post at some point. I did discover (at least several weeks to several months after) that Clorox (a different vendor with a different wipe product) had implemented a safety release feature. The release feature basically includes an ingenious “outer ring” (of sorts) that releases and separates the inner ring if one pushes one’s hand in too far.
The advantages are that the inner ring teeth maintain a grip on the wipe under normal operation. If one accidentally pushes one’s finger in too far, the larger ring temporarily breaks apart to let your finger go in. The whole dispensing opening resets if one pulls out some new wipes.
It is a terrific piece of plastics engineering. I should take a picture at some point.
It seems like there is a new product recall everyday. I am especially concerned about all the recalls on children’s toys and household products. I set up a personal file that alerts me to all product recalls and it sends me a timely notice when one of my products has been recalled.