An e-cigarette exploded in the mouth of a man from Pocatella, Idaho named Andrew Hall. The explosion seriously injured him knocking out seven of his teeth and scorching him.
Andrew Hall, a father of three said he was using his electronic cigarette calling it “vaping” before going to work when it suddenly blew up. According to Yahoo, he was rushed to intensive care at his local hospital, where doctors had to remove chunks of plastic from his throat and lips.
Posting pictures on his Facebook page Facebook page, Hall warned:
“I Vape (I know, terrible and uncool) but I no longer do and I hope to possibly sway those that do to maybe reevaluate or find other methods of smoking.“I’ve been doing this for about a year now and assure you I did not do anything I wasn’t supposed to but it exploded in my face,” Hall wrote.
Usually it is the batteries that are the cause of these explosions. According to the U.S. Fire Administration, “the shape and construction of e-cigarettes can make them more likely than other products with lithium-ion batteries to behave like ‘flaming rockets’ when a battery fails.”
People on social media accused Hall of faking his injuries. But Hall then posted additional photos of his damaged apartment to prove them wrong and he responded the naysayers posting the following:
“The torch marks are on the wall and roof are continuations from my face. Also the explosion downward broke my sink. I’m interested in the same comments from certain people to see what kind words you have to say now.”
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which started regulating e-cigarettes in May 2016, identified about 66 explosions in 2015 and early 2016, after recording 92 explosions from 2009 to September 2015.
Some people believe that the FDA numbers are lower than what’s really happening. For example, the UW Medicine Regional Burn Center at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle counted about 23 patients with e-cigarette burns since it started tracking them informally in October 2015. Some trackers like to differentiate between burns and explosions but ignore the fact that both cause damage and injury.
A 14-year-old boy was partially blinded when an e-cigarette device exploded at a kiosk selling e-cigarettes at a Brooklyn mall. Marc Freund, a New York attorney representing this boy and another e cigarette burn victim said, “They are extremely dangerous and need to be revamped or revised.”
Lithium ion batteries are used safely in many consumer electronics, but in addition to e-cigarette fires they've caused fires in hover boards and smartphones. To protect against in-flight fires last year, the Federal Department of Transportation prohibited passengers from packing e-cigarettes in checked luggage.