If you haven’t heard the horror stories about e-cigarettes acting just as good as fireworks do, tune in to find out how damaging the little handheld device may be to you.
One fine afternoon, Hailey Boyce, a simple 17 year old girl who had just started getting into e-cigarettes, was having a hangout session with some good friends, listening to good music on a front porch of her good friend’s lovely home in Maricopa. Yes, she was lighting up her vaporizer one ignition at a time and inhaling it right after. After a few successful hits came the final blow that would freak the world of vaping.
The vaporizer simply exploded. According to Boyce, who recalls the accident happening only this past Mother’s Day, said that “it exploded like a rocket. I was with my friend. He told me I was on fire and I started screaming.”
When she said the explosion was as forceful as that of a rocket, well, she wasn’t that far off. In fact, the explosion had caused a part of the vaporizer to launch itself into a driveway located three houses apart. As for the whole fire fiesco, well, the battery was overheated and to much lack of luck, it fell onto Boyce, ignited her clothes (in other words, it caused her to catch on fire) and seared both her hands and parts of her upper body that came into contact with the battery.
The result?
A three week period for Boyce at the Arizona Burn Center for skin grafts and surgeries attending to her injuries.
Now, the officials at the Arizona Burn Center are of the position that these “accidents” occur at a very high rate, in fact dubbing these occasions as “regular” with up to a dozen patients coming in for burns due to e-cigarette failures (either by way of a fire or an explosion). Although the numbers were recorded over a three month period, the numbers are still high considering these are only those that are reported to the Arizona Burn Center and needless to say, none of these issues should be happening in the first place.
According to Dr Kevin Foster of the Arizona Burn Center, some explosions occur when an individual is in the process of firing up their device, other severe burns are received when the vaporizer’s battery is overheated and then explodes (even when inside the pockets of the user). For example, a 20 something year old man was damaged with second degree burns due to his vaporizer catching fire in his pockets. It certainly doesn’t sound like something that could happen and you may be questioning why his vaporizer was even switched on when it was in his pocket. Needless to say, the man was not at fault and his device was in fact faulty which caused the battery to overheat even when not powered on. Unfortunately we do not have the specifics as to what device and brand he was using however it doesn’t harm to be more cautious when using your devices to stay clear away from any accidents happening.
The fire administration stated that the reason for this combustion was highly likely due to the lithium batteries overheating which acts very similarly to those in laptop computers and other portable devices. According to Larry McKenna, the fire protection engineer of the fire administration, the vaping industry is under regulated which leads to the increasing likelihood of manufacturers not meeting safety standards and a lack of quality control.
All these issues of burns and vaporizers exploding brings to question whether the e-cigarette world is indeed in need of a tougher regulation on quality and safety controls whilst at the same time the concern of damping the future of e-cigarette and vaporizers.