Girl, 14, is electrocuted by faulty iPhone charger after rolling on to the cable as she slept in Vietnam
- Teenager died after being electrocuted by her torn iPhone charger
- It is thought she rolled onto cable in her sleep while charger was plugged in
- The charger cable had a tear which had been repaired with a piece of tape
A 14-year-old girl has tragically died after being electrocuted in her sleep by her faulty iPhone charging cable.
Le Thi Xoan, aged 14, apparently rolled over onto the torn iPhone cable and was exposed to the live wire, police in the Vietnamese capital Hanoi reported. Medics also confirmed electrocution as the cause of death.
Xoan was found unconscious by her parents and rushed to a local hospital, but doctors were unable to revive her.
Police found the burnt white cable on her bed and think a slight tear in the rubber casing may have revealed the live wires inside.
Police investigators believe Xoan plugged her Apple device into charge, laid the phone on the bed, and rolled onto the iPhone’s charging cable, which electrocuted her with the current. See-through tape was wrapped around the part of the cable, suggesting the victim may have been aware of the wear and tear but decided to continue using it regardless.
The Newton, New Hampshire Fire Department has warned about the dangers of failing to charge your phone the right way. The Fire Department recently posted a warning on Facebook, writing “Research has revealed that 53% of children/teens charge their phone or tablet either on their bed or under their pillow. This is can be extremely dangerous. The heat generated cannot dissipate and the charger will become hotter and hotter.”
In April, 32-year-old Alabama resident Wiley Day fell asleep next to his charging iPhone via with an extension cord next to him in bed.
When he woke up, he found his dog-tag necklace was entangled in a space between the extension cord and the charger.
Day said he was jolted to the floor by electricity, but was able to break the chain off his neck in time. “I kept yelling ‘Jesus,” Day said, describing the experience as “the eeriest, darkest, most demonic thing you could ever experience.”
In 2014, a fire most likely caused by an “electrical fault involving a faulty charging device” killed five people in a house in Sheffield in the United Kingdom.
A baby girl died in 2016 in Kazakhstan after chewing through her parents’ mobile phone charger. The infant chewed on a charger that had an exposed wire as her mother slept nearby. When the mother woke to find her daughter unresponsive, she rushed to the hospital where doctors confirmed the girl’s death had been caused by a serious electrical burn, with burn marks visible on her face and hands.
Source
