Jaws of Life Used to Free Waukesha Woman from Hair Dryer Cord Entanglement
WAUKESHA, WI – Ashley Hammelman was finally freed from her own hair dryer cord after a harrowing three-day ordeal which began Tuesday morning and ended late Thursday with emergency responders extricating her using a Jaws of Life.
“It started like any other day, just doing my hair and putting on some makeup before work,” said Hammelman, now regaining feeling in both legs. “But as soon as I turned to my left to grab something while blow drying my hair, I started to get caught.”
According to Hammelman, the hair dryer cord was so intensely twisted and kinked that it suddenly spasmed and jerked up and around Hammelman’s right forearm and cinched itself into a knot.
What seemed like a minor annoyance soon escalated into a dramatic chain of events.
As Hammelman turned back to untangle herself using her left hand, a second kink in the cord unfurrowed and ensnared her wrist, ultimately binding it to the first knot and pulling her sharply toward the outlet, which caused her to smash her head against the faucet fixture and land face down on a nearby hot curling iron.
“It seemed like it knew to go for my most sensitive area, my head,” Hammelman now recalls from her hospital room.
Still reeling from the blow to the head and second degree burns across her face, Hammelman tried to wrench herself free to no avail as she wearily stumbled and fell to the ground, pulling the cord entirely out of the outlet with her.
Having 17 years-worth of kinks, knots, and twists built up, the cord then recoiled violently and unpredictably like a toppled firework, whipping her repeatedly across the legs, torso, and back as she writhed back and forth in an attempt to duck the blows.
Unfortunately, this only made the knots around her tighter and stronger.
“It became like an Escher painting. I couldn’t find the end to unravel the cord. That’s when I started to panic,” Hammelman recalls.
Ultimately, Hammelman found herself battered, bloodied, and wrapped like a modern day mummy, unable to reach for her cell phone or call for help as her husband was out of town for the week.
“I swear the cord knew I was vulnerable,” Hammelman continued. “It became stronger as time wore on and somehow self-aware. I was already picturing the inevitable Netflix documentary about this.”
Emergency responders eventually discovered Hammelman on Thursday after being sent to perform a welfare check. They found her unconscious but stable with the hair dryer cord still wrapped around her and posed upright baring its prongs like a cobra.
Responders moved swiftly to distract the hair dryer cord before deftly lopping off its head and removing the remaining entanglement with the Jaws of Life.
Hammelman is expected to make a full recovery.
Conair officials could not be reached for comment but are assumed to be preparing for a lawsuit.
Scott Chinsoda reporting
