An unfortunate woman in South Korea was left in ‘agony’ after being partially eaten by a robot vacuum cleaner.
The Guardian reports that the woman was sleeping on the floor while the autonomous roving vacuum did its job.
But disaster struck when her hair became trapped in the mechanism after the machine mistook it for dust.
Fortunately the 52-year-old woman from Changing City was able to get help in time.
The woman was immediately woken by the pain, and called the local fire department with what the Yonhap news agency reported as a “desperate rescue plea”.
She was eventually separated from the machine by paramedics and was not seriously injured. Reports say she lost "about 10 strands" of hair.
South Korean newspaper Kyunghyang Shinmun did not report on the specific brand of vacuum involved - though another local news source said that since sleeping on the floor is more common in the country, people may be at more risk from robotic disaster.
Inevitably thoughts here will turn to the inevitable automaton uprising - but since the other other violence known to have involved a robot vacuum is one act of suicide, we probably don't have too much to worry about.