Exploding Cell Phone Battery Kills

LingNoi writes "A man in Korea was found dead at his workplace Wednesday morning and his mobile phone battery was melted in his shirt pocket. No one knows for sure yet but a doctor who examined the body said, "He sustained an injury that is similar to a burn in the left chest and his ribs and spine were broken" We have heard of other dangerous battery products here on Slashdot." Update: 11/30 17:34 GMT by Z : Turns out the melted battery was the least of his worries; he was actually hit by a truck.

Comments

Re:Grain of Salt Required?

[Dan East]

Far too much energy was released thermally for this to have caused physical trauma (kinetic). If it was an explosion, the phone would have stress type damage - it would be cracked and broken into pieces. The amount of melting indicates a relatively slow release of energy, melting the plastic and burning the clothes.

Think of a firecracker. If it explodes, there won't be heat damage to nearby objects. However if you take the powder out and light it, it will burn for a long enough period of time to cause thermal damage. Same thing here - the majority of the energy was thermal and not kinetic.

Dan East