Exploding iPhone gave SC man severe burns, lawsuit says. Rare but real, experts say
Court documents say the explosion caused severe burns on the back, arms and limbs of
Portee says the burns led to five surgeries and a trying period in his life.
"It was a yearlong process," Portee says.
The incident happened on
Portee's "flesh and clothes were burning." He fell and tore off his clothes.
Portee's son rushed his father to a
Portee operated the iPhone 6 normally, according to the lawsuit. He used the charger that was provided with the phone. "
"As a result of his iPhone explosion ... (Portee) will continue to suffer both physically and emotionally for the rest of his life," the lawsuit says. "
The lawsuit claims Apple knew the iPhone 6 could explode when it was put on the market and that the phone was not manufactured in a way to prevent explosions. The phone also lacked a warning about the potential for combustion, according to the suit.
"The iPhone design was defective because the danger associated with the use of the iPhone as designed outweighs its utility," the suit says.
The iPhone 6 was provided to Portee from
On how much Portee might receive as a settlement, his lawyer,
Neither Apple nor
The lithium batteries in mobile phones are known to explode on rare occasions. When an ignition occurs, it's usually because a battery is pierced, says
Piercing a cellphone battery causes an "electrical arc," O'Neal says, which is basically like connecting metal wires to the positive and negative ends of a battery and bringing the wires together. It's similar to what happens when jumper cables touch each other while connected to a car battery, according to O'Neal.
Arcing can cause a reaction in a phone battery that would lead to combustion.
In all the weird ways people destroy their phones, O'Neal said, he's yet to come across someone whose battery blew up in their pocket.
"We've definitely seen phones that have been shot with BB guns, phones ran over and ones severely bent," O'Neal says. "Even in all those cases, the battery did not explode or ignite."
Overcharging a battery or leaving it on a charger too long can lead to it exploding, according to an article by tech website The Verge. For a variety of reasons, including getting too hot, overcharging can cause the internal components of a phone battery to break down, thus leading chemicals and materials inside the battery to combine and cause a reaction, which ends in fire.
While phone-battery explosions are rare, they do occur. In January, an Apple store in
Also in January, an iPhone battery blew up in a man's face when he bit into it in an electronics store in
In 2016, a string of
Portee's alleged iPhone incident caused him to make a change too.
"I got Android," he says.
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