AUSTIN Texas (Reuters) - A 5-year-old girl was hospitalized on Wednesday after she was trapped in a laundromat washing machine for several minutes and spun at high speeds, police said.

The girl had extensive injuries but was expected to survive the incident Tuesday in a laundromat in Pasadena, about 10 miles (16 km) southeast of Houston, they said

"She was tumbling pretty fast in there," Pasadena police spokesman Vance Mitchell told Houston TV station KHOU.

"One person walked by and said they saw something flopping around in there. They thought it was just a dress or something because it was moving pretty fast," Mitchell said.

Police were unsure how the girl got trapped. The said just before the incident, a customer had tried to use the machine and was given a refund because it was not working properly.

(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Doina Chiacu)