I went to her facebook page and this is what she says about it, along with some better pictures....

I was not going to do a public post about my personal injury this past week however news travels fast when it comes to injuries and I am thankful for the thoughts and prayers from friends and family. With that being said I do believe if you can ever help prevent further freak accidents then it is worth sharing. This week my 3 year old washer exploded sending me across the room with its force. I had thrown in a load of children's laundry and it was on spin cycle when I heard i...t spinning with a louder whistling noise. I went into the laundry room to turn it off and evaluate the issue. I got as far as the utility sink and it exploded sending ball bearings and pieces at me. My feet went out from under me and I dropped on our bench and cabinets hitting my head pretty hard. I don't remember a lot but knew I had to call My husband , I was not near my cell phone and could not move but did have on my Apple Watch so I could use that. Luckily he arrived pretty fast as he could only hear me breathing into my watch. I was brought to the ER for scans and I have a concussion and some issues with my sinus and foot. In case you are wondering we own of Whirlpool Duet washer and there was a recall for them but not the year of ours and it was with mold issues, not parts issues. I am blessed I am ok other then my concussion and pride maybe. If a child had been in front of it the outcome would have been deadly. I did however research that a man died in Texas from this. We called our local service guy at AMPS in Albany and they have been amazing to work with, however Whirlpool safety department has yet to return our calls. I urge families to close their laundry room doors when doing laundry and maybe turn off the circuit breaker if they hear issues with it and do not go in front of it. Thanks again for your prayers and concerns.

My husband just had a customer in the store yesterday telling him about her Whirlpool exploding...he doesn't remember her name but the story was exactly the same as this one.

Thank Goodness she's OK from that freak accident. Hopefully Whirlpool will assist her with her medical expenses.

It appears they made good on a new Washer and Dryer,

Jeff

The ball bearings may be from a balance ring affixed to front rim of the inner drum, although I'm not knowing for sure if WP is using that design (SQ frontloaders do). The drive shaft bearings are in back of the outer tub, behind the inner drum so seems unlikely those would be ejected to the front.

What does that mean, "are calling it down"? I don't understand. What "various reasons"? It's frustrating that your post appears to want to provide a message, but it's impenetrable.

Anyone with the barest mechanical ability or knowledge of how things work can find holes in her story. The bearings "shooting out" is the part that really got to me. Just shook my head and LOL. I have issues with calling this an "explosion" too. The cabinet seems to be remarkably intact for an explosion. Where are the clothes? This looks like a very staged "after" picture to me. I've had washers that were merely unbalanced for a few minutes walk further than this "exploding" one.

So...is this fake news?

Somewhat similar happened to us with our first front loader with a couple of differences but due to user mistreatment.

Our w/d are kept in the master bathroom. We had been outside in the backyard that day and we heard what sounded like a train wreck happening inside the master bathroom. I was running a load of three heavy bath rugs at the time. I ran inside the house to see what was happening and our front load washer had shot itself across the bathroom floor from it's set up location and almost crashed into the bathroom vanity cabinet. It was still making all kinds of ear piercing noise and thrashing itself violently then scooted far enough to unplug itself from the wall, which ended the 'train wreck'.

The door to the washer would not open though. I could see inside the front window that it had turned itself what looked like inside out with the bellows rubber gasket thing and drum, but remained locked. I thought it was a total loss since it looked like the photo above but with a door that wouldn't open.

Fridgidaire sent a tech out two weeks later and to our shock, repaired it. We thought for certain they would look at it and say sorry, you killed it and go on to the next repair job site. They put in a new drum and I suspect barrings and such (I didn't know the first thing about washing machines back then so I really don't know what all they did), but left the rubber gasket in the machine. The rubber lip thing never was the same after that and was rippled/wrinkled to the day the machine croaked about a year after.

The tech advised me to not wash heavy items such as bath rugs in the machine as it wasn't given strong enough parts to handle things like that. Those needed to go to the laundromat to be washed in the oversized heavy duty washers.

So, it does happen on occasion, but in our case it was from what I would call user error. I put too heavy of items into the machine and learned my lesson the hard way. I didn't want to go to the hassle of using the laundromat. The lazy man works twice comes to mind.

The other difference was no one here was injured. I hope this woman has recovered properly.

I just notice the debris is in different places in both pictures

SEA SEA, the worst that should have happened is for the rugs to come out wet. There's no excuse for a washer lacking the brains to keep its G forces within the limits of what its structure can handle. The only exception is washing waterproof stuff, which could rupture and cause a sudden imbalance when the machine is already spinning fast.

Thanks for that suburbanmd. While it was a problem washer from day one and this incident was the 3rd catastrophic repair it had needed in 3 years, this one, I blamed on myself.

A batch of rubber-backed rugs could conceivably hold a pocket of water depending on how they distribute, and then shift and release it. I've had mattress pads hold water, seemingly be spun out and then a pool of water drops out when the item is picked up from the machine. There are legitimate reasons that designated Bulky Items cycles spin at slower speeds. Users washing such items on the Normal cycle at max spin speed was a factor in the exploding Samsung and LG toploaders. Part of the recall fix on them is relabeling the Delicate cycle as being for "Waterproof/Water Resistant" items.

I've washer large items in my washer before. This was probably the biggest challenge: a large doormat, rubber-backed. You can see at 13:00 how the tub bounces and almost jumps at 13:40 when the motor slows it down. The spin speed was automatically lowered from Max to Medium. So far, the washer keeps on going.

In case anyone was interested, the photo below is of one of the bath rugs that made our Fridgidaire FL washer look like the one shown in the above article, but our door was locked, not blown open. I still have and use these rugs in our bathroom,

Also in case anyone was interested, no, our Fridgidaire FL did not work well after this event and subsequent amazing repair. It never balanced well after that and spins were not good, quite jerky and cycle time unreasonably extended...we were glad to send it off to the dump a year later when it's control board died yet again.

Seems like from what I've read around here that Whirlpool makes an all around better washer than Fridgidaire though. Too bad that happened to the woman mentioned above.

I washed three (I think it was) similar rugs (cotton, no backing) in my Neptune TL (Bulky Items cycle which spins @ 500 RPM) for a friend who has a WP FL and was leery of doing them in it because of the weight when saturated-wet. I spun them again in my F&P TL that hits 1,010 RPM, no trouble there either ... but of course they'd already been spun at 500 RPM. I suggested he go ahead and try them in his FL, on the Bulky cycle and/or at a low spin, two or all three so they can distribute around the drum. Haven't yet heard whether he did.

Hoping your friend has good luck with the rugs.

That looks horrible

This is real! It literally just happened to me. I was working in the other room and I heard a very loud noise/explosion. I ran into the laundry room and couldn't believe what was happening with my whirlpool washer, The whole front inside had exploded. The rubber lining was sticking out, some heavy (15 lbs or so) piece of concrete was three feet away on the floor. Not even sure where it came from inside the machine. Ball barrings were loose inside and a metal wire was sticking out. I'm so glad no one was hurt. If someone had been in the laundry room at the time, it could have seriously hurt them. I reached out to the manuafacturer and will see what they say.

That concrete block weighs 22 pounds. Its a counterbalance. My Whirlpool Duet 2 years old exploded last month. The concrete block blew out thru the bottom. No one hurt here either Thank God. I called Whirlpool and explained what happened. ..they made a decision right than to replace my washer with a Whirlpool or Maytag.. They did deliver and install the washer I chose, a Maytag several days ago.

What did they tell you during your call? Did they ask for pictures?

Eta. My washer was no longer under warranty.

I wonder if the new Whirlpools/ Maytags have been redesigned re the counterweight going airborne.

Lantro I wonder the same but I do think the spin speeds were lowered from 1, 400 rpm to 1, 200. I could be wrong but I think these explosions are happening during ramp up to the high spin.

I never use anything above high speed. Never extra high (or Max extract in Maytag's terms).

I'm so thankful that my great big top-load washer can handle anything I want to wash. No exploding parts or "don't wash heavy stuff"!

Raye what washer do you have?

Older whirlpool, I always go for the largest capacity machines so I can wash drapes, comforters, etc.

Frontloaders have always had counterweights on the tub, all the way back to the first machine in the 1950s ... except not "hard-mount" models that don't have internal tub suspension/springs and must be bolted to the floor.

Some toploaders also have counterweights on the transmission. Old-style Maytag toploaders (with two belts) have a counterweight, the entire transmission with counterweight rotates during spin (at 600+ RPM).

Depending on what exact model of "older" Whirlpool toploader Raye Smith is referencing, the largest tub capacity rating was 3.2 or 3.3 cu. ft. .... maybe 3.5.

It's large enough that a king sized comforter easily fits. That's the largest thing I've ever tried to wash. I also washed 25 yards of upholstery fabric without a problem.

Wow I would never think a king comforter would fit in any 3.+ top loader. And than to fit easily...whay is the cubic feet of your washer? Was there turn over?