Robot Vacuum 'Eats' Sleeping Woman's Hair
A woman whose hair was swallowed up by a robot vacuum cleaner while she was sleeping on the floor had to be freed by emergency crews.
The 52-year-old, called Yoon, woke in agony at her South Korean home after the robot apparently mistook her hair for fluff.
Unable to free herself, she called the Changwon city fire department in desperation.
Four emergency workers took half an hour to free her after opening the device.
The woman escaped serious injury.
"This case was quite special," the fire department said. "We had seen weird things, but this was a very weird call that we received."
It is not clear whether the woman has retained the robot cleaner’s services.
Such devices have become popular in the last decade, with US firm iRobot selling more than 10 million units of its circular Roomba.
The devices have sensors that usually allow them to avoid obstacles.
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The makers of Roomba, iRobot, reached out to Daily Dot with a comment on the story:
The robotic vacuum cleaner that got tangled in the hair of a woman from Changwon, South Korea is not an iRobot product. The safety of our customers is paramount for iRobot, and all of the company’s products undergo strict development processes and testing before going to market. This includes safety mechanisms in Roomba that deactivate its cleaning system when it is not placed on the ground.
