CHESTERFIELD, Va. (WWBT/Gray News) – Recovery continues for a military veteran seriously injured after a glass shower door exploded in a home he was renting.
Kevin Caple says he had just finished a hot shower in the home he was renting in Chesterfield, Virginia, when the glass shower door exploded, WWBT reports.
“I was opening the shower door, and it moved maybe about an inch or two, just barely enough to start moving. Right as it was moving, just bam! It exploded, and everything came down on me,” Caple said.
The military veteran’s foot and hand were cut, and he knew he needed to call for help.
“I was in shock. So, I immediately jumped through all the broken glass, grabbed the towel, put a quick tourniquet across my foot to stop [the bleeding]. I didn’t want to see the wound,” he said.
Caple called 911, and EMS arrived in less than 15 minutes. He was treated at home.
“They looked at the wounds and stopped the bleeding. They said I’m definitely going to need stitches on my left foot, and I’m just going to need stitches on my right hand,” Caple said.
The military veteran eventually took himself to the VA Hospital, where he got stitches. He later needed surgery on his foot.
“They had to take a tendon from another toe to fix the tendon to the big toe… Hopefully, the surgery was successful,” he said.
Caple moved out of the rental home several months after the accident and says his landlords returned his security deposit. While he is continuing to recover from the injury to his foot, he admits he is grateful the situation was not worse.
“I still got my life. I walked away with my life. I got a messed up foot, but it could have been worse. I could have passed out in there, and nobody would have known I was here,” he said.
Following the incident, Caple still has questions about how and why the glass door shattered.
According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, from 2012 to 2016, there were an estimated 2,300 emergency department visits in the United States associated with shattering glass shower doors. In 2018, a tempered glass safety alert was issued, outlining mandatory safety standards for glass in showers, bathtub enclosures, doors, storm doors and glass sliding doors.
“What I’ve learned is that it could have got a manufacturer’s defect while it was being made, or it could have got chipped or damaged while it was being installed, or it could be temperature-related. So, out of the three, I don’t know if I can prove whether it was a manufacturer’s defect,” Caple said. “If it had a small chip in it while it was being installed, over time… if any of the water got into the glass where it was damaged, that could have made the glass door explode.”
In situations like Caple’s, there is the possibility of filing a product liability case. Howard Bullock, an attorney with Emroch and Kilduff, admits product cases can be a drawn out process.
“You have to prove that they didn’t comply with manufacturing standards that other shower manufacturer door makers use and that that defect is what caused the unsafe condition. You also have to prove that that unsafe condition existed at the time that the product left the manufacturer or the seller’s hands,” Bullock said.
In these cases, Bullock says it is important to prove a product was unreasonably dangerous, such as the tempering process was done incorrectly, or if there was a defect in the installation, the hardware was installed incorrectly.
“It’s important that you take steps to preserve as much of the product as possible, meaning the glass. You save the hardware and keep that preserved,” Bullock said. “If you do want to bring a case, that glass can be tested, the hardware can be tested, by experts in their particular fields to determine what ultimately was the cause of the explosion.”
Bullock says the manufacturer or installer could be liable in a products case.
“The severity of the injury is an important part of [the case]. Another component is what kind of future medical conditions the person has as a result of the injury,” he said.
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