British Man Burned After iPhone Explodes In His Pocket

On Sunday afternoon, a British mountain biker, Gareth Clear, was riding through Australia’s Manly Dam, when he felt and his iPhone 6 exploded while it was in his pocket.

After the fall, Gareth fell heat and saw smoke coming from his iPhone just before it exploded. The phone burnt thought his shorts and then 2 layers of skin. As the phone was in his pocket, the injury took place on his right upper thigh.

He made it to the Royal North Shore hospital in Sydney, where he received a skin graph.

He said “I fell to the side on my bike, the phone was in a rear pocket … I looked at my right hand side and I just saw smoke coming from the back of my shorts.”

“There was this intense heat generated from my pocket … it melted through my shorts and gave me third degree burns in the upper right hand side of my thigh.”

He also told Australia’s Daily Telegraph newspaper “I’m 36, I’ve had a mobile phone for 18 years of my life and for that thing to explode or short circuit and cause it to temporarily ignite.

“I could see the metal bending and all the lithium leaking out of the bottom end.”

He says that the top of the phone is still intact, however, the bottom of the phone look like a ‘chemical explosion’ occurred there.

It was a ‘one in a million chance’ that, when he fell, the lithium battery in the device would be pierced, however, that is what they think has happened.

The manufacture of the device, Apple, have launched an investigation, to find out the precise reason the device exploded. So far, there has been no official comment.

If you have an iPhone and are doing something that has a chance of impacting your handset, take extra care. Putting your phone in a very hard case that will not allow the battery to be pierced would be a smart move. Alternatively, putting your phone away from your body, like in a bag, would also be a good idea.

For the full story, visit the Sky News website.