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

Grain of Salt Required?

[ackthpt]

An LG official confirmed its product was involved in the accident but said the company would not comment directly on the accident because the cause was not confirmed. However, the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to company policy, said such a fatal explosion would be virtually impossible.

I'd like to know just how big that battery was.

Kim Hoon, a doctor who examined the body, said the death was probably caused by an explosion of the battery. "He sustained an injury that is similar to a burn in the left chest and his ribs and spine were broken," Yonhap news agency quoted Kim as saying.

Broken ribs and spine? Ok, this man was found in his workplace (a quarry.) Isn't reasonable to assume something else broke those ribs and spine and whatever did that also damaged the phone and battery?

The cell in my Razr could probably take off a finger or two if it exploded from pressure, but a spine is a rather hard thing to break, let alone ribs, unless this was a very, very small man.

This sounds like something from The Weekly World News, the Sun or News of the World.

Next on Fantastic Nooz: Scientist proves earth was created by asteroid collision with Moon, not the other way around. IAU rocked by the revelation and immediately reinstates Pluto as a full-fledged planet, with all rights and privileges. "Smaller bodies should have rights!", proclaim cosmologists.

Re:Grain of Salt Required?

[HTTP Error 403 403.9]

In Korea, exploding cellphones are only for old people.

Re:Grain of Salt Required?

[fireboy1919]

...unless this was a very, very small man.
His job in the quarry was to hunt rats. He has a tiny spear, and special shirt with a gigantic (for him) pocket sown into the back to carry his cellphone, which is essentially the largest thing he carries.

Did I mention that he's a minature dwarf spider monkey? Hmm...probably not important.

Re:Grain of Salt Required?

[Ogive17]

I'd have to agree with you. It doesn't seem that the mass of a battery (or a cell phone in general) would be high enough to do the damage described in the article.

Maybe the cell phone battery exploded, he started to panic because it burned, and he fell on a table edge and broke is back.. ribs break easily so just a normal fall could cause that.

Re:Grain of Salt Required?

[harrkev]

I have read (note that I am not a chemist) that the energy density of a lithium battery is close to that of the explosive in a grenade. The difference is that the grenade releases its energy all at one, while a lithium battery deliveres it a little at a time over hours/days (if all goes well).

Note that I said energy density. This takes into account the volume, and cell phone batteries are rather small. So a cell phone battery will have a lot less energy than a grenade, just because it is smaller.

A quick google search turned up this link. Search down for the word "grenade": http://www.fieldlines.com/story/2007/2/28/20539/1486

OK. I admit that this is not an authoritative source. But, look here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density

The energy density of some explosives is about twice (when compared on terms of weight, not volume) that of a Lithium-ion battery. Once you add the weight of the metal around the explosive, it seems reasonable.

Re:Grain of Salt Required?

[fbjon]

Well, it's certainly demolished. Pictures.

Re:Grain of Salt Required?

[secPM_MS]

I agree. I think we have two coupled events here:

1

The phone battery failed causing him to fall or get in the way of something, resulting in the broken ribs and spine.

2

He fell or was stuck, resulting in the broken ribs and spine. The impact caused the phone battery to fail.

2 seems far more likely than 1. Having a battery blow up in a shirt pocket and leaving a burn on my chest is not going to break my spine. An explosion in my shirt pocket that is powerful enough to break my spine is also going to blow my chest tissue off, blow my ribs into my lungs and heart, and do a lot of other damage.

Re:Grain of Salt Required?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd just like to say "thank you" for posting a photo link that WASN'T goatse.

Re:Grain of Salt Required?

[bark76]

Maybe he got his clothing here.

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

Re:Grain of Salt Required?

[Se7enLC]

A second doctor who could not be reached for comment concluded that the injuries sustained were consistent with those caused by leaving an electric fan on while sleeping.

Re:Grain of Salt Required?

[sm62704]

He was in a quarry. Seems to me the most likely scenario was he got hit by a big rock, square in the cell phone.

That said, LG is my 3rd least favorite company, right behind Sony and Microsoft, as I had an LG phone with horrible factory defects. I returned it for a replacement, and the replacement was worse.

So I'm conflicted in defending these guys, but I don't think this one was LG's fault.

Come to think of it, my least favorite device would be a Sony laptop running Windows, powered by an LG battery (shudder)

-mcgrew

Re:Grain of Salt Required?

[Enigma2175]

Here is a Babelfish link for the page. My favorite quote from the page is from the "The world which it sees with statistics" sidebar - " ' The white mustache most ' 16% of the whole furnitures". I agree that the white mustache is important in home decor but 16% of the whole furnitures? Outrageous!

differences

[gEvil (beta)]

The difference between real media and slashdot:

"Exploding cell phone battery may have killed South Korean man: officials"
vs
"Exploding Cell Phone Battery Kills"

Can anyone spot the difference in the meanings?

Re:differences

[dintech]

And be sure to click a few ads on your way out...

Only burned his chest, but broke his spine?

[InvisblePinkUnicorn]

So it did nothing more than cause a burn on his chest, but the pressure was high enough to break his ribs and spine? Does anything seem odd about this?

Re:Only burned his chest, but broke his spine?

[matria]

More likely a fall, which broke the ribs and spine and damaged the phone which "exploded". My husband fell in a similar situation, landed on his left side, but had his large walkie-talkie in his pocket. It cracked his ribs and destroyed the walkie-talkie; the fall would have smashed his ribs if he hadn't had it in his pocket.

In a Related Story

[UncleWilly]

Just in time for Christmas!
Kevlar-Asbestos Universal Cell Phone Carrier
$29.99 plus S&H

I know what happened

[sokoban]

He had one of those phones you shake to see how much liquid is in them, which indicates battery life. His was empty, so he filled it up with gasoline.

Fan?

[Ecuador]

Are we certain he was not in a closed room with a fan?

I really doubt this

[smellsofbikes]

The guy worked in a quarry. He's found with broken ribs and a broken spine. Having suffered broken ribs and a broken spine, myself, I can say that it takes an *enormous* amount of force to do that. If the cellphone had exploded with sufficient force to break vertebrae, there'd be a big hole where his chest was and no sign of the cellphone.
Much, much more likely is that he was struck by something large, that broke his back and ribs, and also crushed the cellphone, rupturing the battery compartment and making the battery melt from short-circuiting itself.

People killed by dynamite blasts don't have broken vertebrae, even when the shock wave has torn their hearts loose from their arteries.

I've heard this one!

[Bluesman]

The answer is, he was hit forcefully on the back with a club made of ice, which shattered. He fell on one of the shattered pieces, piercing the cell phone battery causing it to melt. The ice melted, leaving no evidence of what had happened...

Also today

[moogied]

A man was found dead in Canada. He died from apparent bullet wounds to the skull.

Police have a sony laptop in custody.

Actually

[Poromenos1]

unless this was a very, very small man. He was actually found in the pocket of another, normal-sized man.

Remote exploit

[athloi]

In the future: hackers find out that re-programming a phone to radically fluctuate its power consumption in the same pattern that in flashing lights induces seizures in gamers, within five minutes, causes the battery to detonate and eliminate the target.

Five minutes later, government denies it has *ever* heard of such a thing, and it would never do it, even if it knew how.

Five minutes later, the reporter who broke the story dies in a mysterious cell phone explosion.

Yeah... Newton's Law

[isa-kuruption]

For every force, there is an equal and opposite force...

So the exploded battery broke his ribs and spine, but couldn't muster enough force to rip the shirt pocket? Give me a break.

Re:Yeah... Newton's Law

[lazyforker]

Must have been a really good shirt.

Perfect xmas gift for an ex-wife.

[trolltalk.com]

"In Korea, exploding cellphones are only for old people."

In the rest of the world, they're also great stocking stuffers for ex-wives, guys who beat on women, and Darl McBride.

... and for good measure, in Soviet Russia, exploding phone disconnects YOU!

This is the second such fatality this year.

[hey!]

In June a Chinese man named Xiao Jinpeng was killed by an exploding battery in a Motorola phone (http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2007/07/phone_battery_explosion_kills_weldor_in_gansu_keralanex.php)

At the time, this was the sixth documented cell phone explosion in two years for China.

As I pointed out in another post, an 1100 maH battery packs more than enough energy to kill a man, especially by injury to the heart. In rare cases even a baseball striking the chest can result in cardiac arrest. An exploding cell phone could pack a considerable wallop, maybe not enough to kill you if you had it on your hip, but certainly enough to kill you if you carried it on your chest.

Re:This is the second such fatality this year.

[Fizzl]

...Aaaaand the cells are not usually packed in container suitable for compressing combustion into actual explosion. What you get is a nasty chemical fire which is virtually inextinguishtable in the time it releases its energy.

There's no way a LiPo cell in plastic packaging could explode with considerable force.

I build my own RC airplane batteries. I have right now 50 x 2400mAh cells at home. I have experimented shorting fast discharging cells. I have tried puncturing them. I have tried over charging them. I have tried deforming them. Yes, you get spectacular fireworks, but no explosions in conventional containers.

If I _wanted_ to explode one, I probably could. But I would seal the cell in sharpnel grenade style iron shell or something...

PS. Discard your Li* battery if it ever puffs even slightly or gets a visible deformation from a shock. Damaged Li*'s are unstable.

Re:Newton's Laws?

[zippthorne]

Yes, you're not quite right. The magnitude of the force depends on the distance over which it is applied. Since the phone is restricted in one direction by your body, and not so much the other direction (by a flimsy shirt) the force on you is much greater.

The momentum of the phone itself is enough. Go down to the range and practice shooting. Feel all that recoil, despite the fact that the bullet is completely unrestrained in the other direction, and a bullet has a lot less mass than the gun does.

Now in a powerful explosion, the phone's gonna shoot off pretty fast. In some cases fast enough to rip through the shirt once it gets far enough that it takes up all the slack. Which brings to mind the question: how strong was that shirt? If it was strong enough, perhaps some kind of reinforced shirt or something, the hoop stress would be supported by the guy's back, so the shirt itself could maybe be the thing that broke the spine, rather than the shockwave. If that's the case, then there is also an easy solution: breakaway pockets.

I'm not sure that an explosion powerful enough to break the spine would also break the shirt, because I don't know how powerful an explosion would do either. Ribs are pretty easy to crack, though. You can do it just by punching someone hard, and you will crack some if you ever have to do CPR.