Paper shredder leads to nightmarePuppy lost its tongue, then frantically bit owner; consumer group says machines can hurt children, too
Sara Leaming
Staff writer
March 2, 2005
Adam Forney doesn't even own a paper shredder.
And he probably never will.
The 22-year-old was sitting on his couch in his south Spokane home watching television Feb. 12 when his 7-month-old puppy licked the top of his roommate's shredder and the dog's tongue was sucked into the shredding mechanism.
"I ran into the room … she was pulling so hard and the thing was dragging … then she just ripped away," Forney said. "I will never forget the sound it made when she pulled away."
In the chaos of trying to help his injured dog, Forney's pinky finger was bitten off at the first joint, and another finger was fractured by the bite.
"I grabbed her head to try and get her to calm down, and she bit me," Forney said. "She ran out of the room and I just lost it. It looked like a murder scene in my house … there was so much blood."
Forney went to the emergency room, and his mixed-breed dog, Alice Lane, went to a local pet emergency clinic, where she was euthanized.
Such cases involving animals apparently are rare, veterinarians said, although no one's keeping track. One Spokane vet says that she has seen one similar incident in six years, and that the dog survived.
But the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission says shredders – $350 million worth were sold last year and many wound up in homes – pose a growing threat of injury to children, particularly toddlers.
The agency received 31 reports involving finger amputations and other finger injuries from paper shredders from January 2000 to December 2003.
The agency suggests shredder owners take precautionary steps, like leaving them unplugged when not in use and never letting children feed paper through a shredder, even with adult supervision.
It behooves pet owners to use caution, too, said Dr. Terri Schneider at Washington State University's College of Veterinary Medicine.
"I think the important thing for people to consider here is that you should treat pets just like you would when you have a toddler in the home, because they sort of behave like that," Schneider said. "They are into everything."
A law set to take effect June 1 could push the paper-shredding market into overdrive.
The Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act, passed in December 2003, requires the destruction of all paper containing personal information.
Companies, businesses or individuals that pull personal information on future employees, for example, must "shred or burn" documents instead of tossing them in the trash can.
The law is a response to the growing problem of identity theft.
Adam Forney's father wishes shredders would just go away.
The Spokane Valley resident said he wakes up at night thinking about what his son went through, and the frantic message he received that night.
"He was hysterical, crying, 'Alice got her tongue in a shredder, my finger is hanging off, I don't know what to do,' " Gary Forney said. "It sounded so terrible."
Adam Forney was told he likely would have lost his pinky finger if not for a surgeon in the emergency room. It has been reattached.
Without medical insurance, Forney's bills are in the thousands.
And he lost his best friend.
"(The shredder) ground all the way down to the base of the tongue, there was no tongue left," said Terry Brown, a veterinarian at the Pet Emergency Clinic on East Mission.
Without her tongue, she could not have survived, Brown said.
"I cry every day still," said Forney's mother, Penny Forney, who often dog-sat.
"She was our 'granddog.' "
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