CHESTERFIELD, Va. (WWBT) - Recovery continues for a military veteran injured after a glass shower door exploded in a home he was renting.
“11:00 a.m. after taking a nice hot shower, I’m using [my right] hand. I was opening the shower door and it moved me about an inch or two. Just barely enough to start moving in. Right as it was moving, just bam! It exploded and everything came down on me,” Kevin Caple explained. wardrobe with clear glass doors
Caple’s foot was 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.
He called 9-1-1. He says EMS arrived in less than 15 minutes.
“They looked at the wounds and they 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. And, the main thing was to get my blood pressure back up,” Caple recalled. “My blood pressure was real low, and I was barely hanging on, so they stayed for about 45 minutes. They gave me something to eat and drink until I was feeling a little comfortable, and I didn’t want them to take me to the hospital because I’m unemployed. I’m veteran, and I said I could get, treated at the VA Hospital.”
Eventually taking himself to the VA Hospital, Caple got stitches but 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.
He still questions how and why the glass door shattered.
According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, from 2012 to 2016, there were an estimated 2,300 U.S. emergency department visits 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 defect while it was being made, or it could have got a chipped or damaged what 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,” said Caple. “If it had a small chip in it while it was being installed, over time, and I’ve been in there taking showers with hot, extremely hot water over a period of time, if any of the water or that 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.
“In Virginia, there are rules in place to protect consumers. One of those is what’s called an implied warranty. That states that manufacturers or designers or sellers of products have a duty to manufacture and design products that are safe for their intended purpose and fit for their intended purpose,” explained attorney Howard Bullock with Emroch and Kilduff, “So basically, they can’t cut corners. They have to take steps to make sure that the product is safe for their consumers.”
Bullock says there are many steps involved in a product liability case
“You have to prove that they didn’t comply with manufacturing standards that other shower manufacturer door makers use, and that the defect is what caused the unsafe condition. You also have to prove that the unsafe condition existed at the time that the product left the manufacturer or the seller’s hands,” Bullock explained.
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,” said Bullock. “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.
Caple moved out of the rental home several months after the accident and says his landlords returned his security deposit. While he will continue 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 a life. I got a messed up foot. But it could have been worse. I could have passed out in there and. And nobody would have known I was here,” said Caple.
glass shower door with half wall Copyright 2025 WWBT. All rights reserved.