PLANO, Texas - Nationwide, including North Texas, reports of glass tabletops randomly exploding have spread concern.

Lawsuits have ensued as tables continue to explode. Now, one Plano woman wants to share her own experience.

Audrey Ruedas said she loves spending time on her outdoor patio.

"It was really a nice day - normal, calm [and] no wind," she said of the day she was hit with a big surprise.

Without warning, Ruedas said the glass in her patio table suddenly exploded.

"I just didn't know what to think," she said.

Originally, she thought the loud blast was the sound of a drive-by shooting.

Instead, she quickly learned, it was the sound of the tempered glass from her table, which she owned for one year, exploding.

Tempered glass is designed to be sturdier than regular glass. It's hard to break, unless one hits it in the right spot.

But Alan Aday, a glass expert, said glass can be a tricky substance.

"It's not a solid," he said. "It's not a liquid. It's somewhere right in the middle. It's active."

One theory is that the glass becomes too active, leading it to explode. There could be a particle in the manufacturing process that's trapped in the glass, and on a hot day when the glass is particularly active, it could cause breakage.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission hasn't recalled the tables, but has asked some manufacturers to redesign them for safety reasons.

That's what surprised me," Ruedas said of the fact that she isn't the only one who has had the same experience.

Aday said it could take glass anywhere from two hours to two years to explode, if it ever does. It's unpredictable and uncommon, he said.

Aday said heat is not always the culprit, either. In fact, tempered glass is heated to 2,500 degrees in order to make it.

E-mail sslater@wfaa.com