SINGAPORE - A maid who walked on broken glass to save a toddler who had accidentally shattered a door was praised on Facebook by the child's mother.

The mother, who gave her name only as Ms Lee, shared her account of the incident on Facebook on Thursday night (May 3).

She had taken her three-year-old son to her older sister's house, a Housing Board flat in Khatib, on April 28.

"Upon reaching my sister's house, my son wanted to pee and was accompanied by my helper Jena," she wrote.

"While Jena was flushing the toilet bowl, my son was trying to pull the sliding door forcibly... as a result the glass door shattered on top of him."

She said the floor was "covered with thousands of tiny glass shards".

"To my horror, I saw blood streaming down his face," she said.

Her son then wanted to step away from the scene.

At this moment, Filipino maid Sheryl Manuel Carabacan, who works for Ms Lee's sister, shouted at the boy to stop him from walking on the glass.

"Next, she told Jena, who was in a state of shock, to lift him up. Without a second thought, Sheryl walked into the toilet barefoot to carry him out," wrote Ms Lee.

The two maids were unharmed from the incident, and the family took the boy to KK Women's and Children's Hospital, where he was found to have a few minor cuts on his head.

Ms Lee said the sliding door of the shower cubicle was made of tempered glass, and advised parents not to let their guard down when children are around such tempered glass doors.

"The glass is designed to blow into thousands of itty bitty pieces, rather than large shards that could severely cut someone," she wrote.

Spring Singapore had told The Straits Times in a report last year that tempered glass implodes, shattering into small pieces with rounder edges than those of normal glass, reducing the risk of injury.

Glass experts said spontaneous shattering occurs only in tempered glass. But there is no cause for panic, they said, as such cases are not common.

Ms Carabacan's employer, who gave her name only as Madam Lee, told The Straits Times that the 32-year-old maid has worked for her for more than six years.

"She is a very, very good helper," said Madam Lee, 39, who works in a trading firm. "She always puts others before herself. I appreciate her a lot."

When asked how she has rewarded her, Madam Lee declined to reveal her plans.

"Luckily she was not hurt," she said. "She is indeed a super good helper of mine."