A girl from southeastern Minnesota endured pain and nightmares after being burned by a coffeemaker at the center of a major national recall because of hot contents spewing from the devices.
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and its counterpart in Canada announced the recall of 1.7 million Tassimo single-cup brewers on Thursday after fielding 140 reports of coffee, tea, grounds or leaves spraying uncontrollably from the machine. Also being recalled are millions of espresso discs that go into the beverage makers.
Second-degree burns from the machines have been suffered by 37 people, one of them 10-year-old Halee Miller, of Glenville, Minn., according to the consumer agency.
Halee's burns, suffered on Dec. 28, 2010, required synthetic skin grafts at the Hennepin County Medical Center. Because her recovery required that she avoid sun and cold, Halee couldn't attend class at Glenview-Emmons Elementary and had to be taught at home for about four weeks, said her mother, Susan Miller.
"She couldn't go outside because of the risk of infection," Miller said. "It was just really fragile skin -- even now."
While doing well more than 13 months later, "if she exerts herself, you can see where she was burned; the spots come back," Halee's mother said.
"She cried," Miller said. "She had nightmares."
Halee was burned while at home with her grandmother. As the brewer began its cycle, "it started to make a funny noise," Miller said, and then a disc filled with coffee exploded.
