A mother has told of the terrifying moment when her washing machine exploded in the kitchen causing the work top to fly past her.

On Sunday night Suzanne was in her Northern Ireland kitchen putting out food for her family when with no warning at all, her washing machine exploded.

Expand Close The scene after the washing machine exploded. Pic: BBC Stephen Nolan Show @BBCNolan / Facebook

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She described it as an explosion - which sent plates flying over her head and caused destruction in her kitchen making cracks in the tiles and putting holes in the cooker.

The Hoover washing machine was a 2008 VHD 8143 D.

This is the second type of explosion of a Hoover washing machine to affect a Northern Ireland customer in a number of weeks.

Speaking to the BBC Stephen Nolan Show she said: "I was standing putting out some food on the unit above the machine and with no warning, no sign of anything wrong, the machine just exploded like a bomb.

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That's the only way i could describe it.

"It exploded just in front of my eyes. I didn't know what was happening, there was plates flying over my head, the kettle, coasters, the work surface that covered the machine flew past me like a bit of paper.

"It was a bomb, there's no other way to describe it."

"I didn't know what it was doing, it was in spin and just blew up. I was standing right over it.

"The Fire Brigade don't understand how I wasn't seriously injured."

Suzanne said her children had been in the kitchen shortly beforehand and she fears they could have been seriously injured.

"My wee 5-year-old had been sitting on his iPad a foot away from it.

"It potentially could have been worse, fatal even and that's no exagerration. People need to be aware that this can happen."

Suzanne required oxygen when the Fire Brigade arrived and was treated for shock.

"The Fire Brigade said they have never seen anything like it before. That's the only explanation they had - an explosion. It was frightening."

Hoover offered to send her a new washing machine but Suzanne refused and told them that the product had "destroyed" her kitchen.

She said: "They said we will deliver you a new washing machine. But my kitchen is destroyed, there are holes in the side of my cooker and tiles are all cracked.

"They said to 'send them across some quotes'.

"I said, 'see your product I don't want them in my home'. I don't think they understood the seriousness of what happened in my home on Sunday night. I don't think they understood the seriousness of what could have been.

"Until Hoover do something about this somebody is going to be seriously injured or else killed."

There was everything flying about. When was walking out the door I as in shock I didn't know if i was alive or dead.

"They had to give me oxygen and try and bring me round. The initial shock I started panicking and hyperventilatiing."

In a statement to the Stephen Nolan show Hoover said the product was manufactured in 2008 and the explosion was caused by a "very sporadic anomaly".

It said: "The explosion was caused by a very sporadic anomaly in the welding process the manufacturing process was changed immediately when we became aware of this anomoly. No machine produced since this time are subject to this manufacturing anomaly.

"The likelihood of experiencing failure of this type was demonstrated to be extremely small indeed."

Belfast Telegraph

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