Ecig Explosions Make Hot News
The message still isn’t getting across: store and charge your equipment safely.
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by Dave Cross
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The prerequisites for any would-be newspaper ecig venting story are as follows:
- A picture showing your best sad compo face (preferably pointing at something).
- Say that the doctors said it was the worst case of whatever they’d ever seen.
- Mention how a child could have been there and died (even though they weren’t).
- Mention how the child is very upset about everything.
- Talk about the volume of the explosion (it was so loud I thought war had begun).
- Don’t take photos of it being incorrectly charged.
In the first case, The Derbyshire Times reports on Michael Hardy. Hardy was stopping off at Leicester Forest East and claims his iJoy device was turned off and the atomiser wasn’t on the mod.
Hardy said: “It was like a flare going off in my pocket for about 60 seconds and there was a massive explosion, it even set off car alarms. It was the most horrific pain in my life and I have broken my back before. I was in severe pain and I still am, I cannot do anything, I am bed bound.”
“My little boy is distraught,” Hardy continued. “The plastic surgeons said it was one of the worst burns they had seen, it is acid burns as well.” You can see images of his burns here.
He went on to offer his expert opinion on the entire market that delivers safe satisfaction to millions of other vapers: “I do not think there is a safe e-cigarette on the market. I have followed the information on how to use it to a tee. I did exactly what it said, I have followed it by the book.”
One image in The Sun’s coverage displays a loose cell, not contained in a mod. There is no image of the mod or atomiser, just his jeans pocket.
The Birmingham Mail has covered the story of a blaze in Oldbury. Included in their article is an image of a 2A iPhone charger plugged into an extension reel – something wholly unsuitable for most devices. They use the opportunity to hark back to a previous tale of someone plugging their device into a computer.
London Fire Brigade's Charles Pugsley said: “People assume e-cigarettes are much safer than ordinary cigarettes, and in most cases they are. The danger is that people sometimes use incorrect chargers which runs the risk of over-charging, which can potentially have explosive results. We are calling on e-cig retailers to ensure they are selling the correct chargers for the cigarettes. As with all rechargeable electrical equipment it's vitally important that people use the correct type of charger for their e-cigs to prevent fires which can be serious and could even result in death.”
POTV recommends that vapers only use the charging device supplied with their device and follow the usage instruction on where to plug it in. Loose batteries should never be carried in a pocket with coins, keys, or other conducting items. Ensure that spare batteries are separated from each other in insulating containers.
Read more about battery information for vapers.
Dave Cross
Journalist at POTVDave is a freelance writer; with articles on music, motorbikes, football, pop-science, vaping and tobacco harm reduction in Sounds, Melody Maker, UBG, AWoL, Bike, When Saturday Comes, Vape News Magazine, and syndicated across the Johnston Press group. He was published in an anthology of “Greatest Football Writing”, but still believes this was a mistake. Dave contributes sketches to comedy shows and used to co-host a radio sketch show. He’s worked with numerous start-ups to develop content for their websites.
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