An Important Safety Reminder, and Reader Request.

Hi there,

I received this email tonight and it scared me. I'm going to copy and paste it in it's entirety--please take the time to read it.

thank you.
xoxo
steph
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Greetings!

I just wanted to share something with you and to make a special request.

First to start with, I just got out of the hospital today (I am doing better thank you) and I was trying to catch up on emails. As your email came up, it jogged my brain to share this experience that I just had this past week.

On the day I went in to the hospital Tuesday a week ago, I used my Crockpot. I started it 10:00 AM and went about the days tasks, around 3:00 PM I began to exhibit symptoms of heart attack. I gave in around 4:15 PM to my concern that I was having one. I told my hubby it was time to head to the hospital. We canceled, an appointment with a foundation repair company, and handy man appointment and rushed out the door. Yes, the crockpot was left on and it was not even on my mind as we hurried out the door nor did my sniffer smell the delicious food aroma. Around 10:45 at night laying in the ER it hit me like a brick that it was still on and on high temp. Now thinking this, I really I felt awful. My head was pounding as I remembered nobody had keys to the house (just changed locks). The hospital staff had to find my hubby that had went to get some food somewhere in the building. He was unaware of the Crockpot being on, if he did... he did not have it on his mind. My over extended, tired, worried hubby had to race home and to turn it off. His health was not that great either and it was more stress for him to deal with.

Luckily, this story is has good ending. Nothing in the Crockpot burned too badly but the juices were gone. The house was still standing and the pets still waiting happily for their owners (mommy and daddy) to come home. The end could have been very bad. As I was in the ER for a long period of time.During which time, I had seen many people coming and going some not going anywhere for obvious reasons.

My eyes caught sight of some firefighters that came in wearing their wet suits at least part of them. Laying there, I thought how bad it would be for one of those men or women to loose their lives or even a neighbor to if they were to go inside my house, if it was burning only to try to rescue an empty house. One that had a Crockpot that started the fire. By now reading this, I think your seeing the picture that I saw. Nightmare, yes, it was a nightmare but somewhere some time in my life time someone has lived out that nightmare. Reason, I am bringing this up is I realize we cannot control all things in our lives but we do have to plan wisely for the unexpected and make good decisions as our decisions will affect others when using our cooking appliances.

Dianna

DFW Area, Texas

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Please always, always use your best judgement when using any appliances. If you are working with a slow cooker that does not have a safety feature that turns to warm or off when cooking is done, please consider upgrading to a newer model. Please refer to the manufacturer's instructions of your particular slow cooker make and model.

thank you.

Dianna, I am so glad that you are okay.