Articles Posted in Lithium Battery Explosion and Fire

A defective e-cigarette battery exploded in the pocket of a man driving his car in New York City, seriously injuring him. 24 year old Ricardo Jiminez  suffered a large second-degree burn on his thigh and right hand after the e-cigarette exploded in his jeans pocket. At the time of the accident, Ricardo was driving his car. As he felt heat in his pocket he put his hand in his pocket to take the battery out. At the same time the battery exploded. Smoke invaded the car. Quickly Ricardo put the car in park, jumped out of it and removed his pants. As he was doing so a police officer saw him and called for an ambulance.

Another man was burned by a defective e-cigarette battery in New York around two weeks ago. The man was working at a wine store in Grand Central Station when the accident happened.

Recently, an increased number of people have been severely burned by exploding E-Cigarette batteries all around the world. The explosions are usually caused by poorly manufactured lithium-ion batteries. Lithium-ion batteries are used in many electronic consumer goods. While many e-cigarettes batteries are produced in China by little known manufacturers, the recent lithium battery explosion also affected large worldwide manufacturers. Recently Samsung had to recall and stop the sale of its latest cell phone after multiple reports of defective battery explosions.  Hover-boards batteries also have led to multiple explosions that sometimes led to the destruction of entire houses.

Defective batteries in the Samsung Galaxy Note7 can potentially overheat and catch fire causing severe burns to users. On September 15 the smartphone manufacturer announced that it was recalling about 1 million Samsung Galaxy Note7 phones sold in the US and Canada before September 15th. The company received 92 reports indicating that the lithium battery was overheating. 26 people reported being burned and 55 others reported property damage including fires in cars and garages.  The recalled devices were sold in various colors and features a 5.7 inch screen. If you own one of these phones, please locate the IMEI number on the back of your phone. You can then go to the Samsung website to check if your phone is being recalled.

Read more about this recall on the CPSC website