It’s no news that at least five billion people worldwide use mobile phones. Ingenious mobile phones such as the iPhone and Blackberry are becoming indispensable to many mobile phone users.
In recent years, there have been many claims (both real and imagined) of people getting injured or sometimes dying while using their mobile phones.
In 2004, a rumour spread rapidly in the commercial capital of Nigeria, Lagos, that if one answered calls from certain “killer numbers,” one would die immediately. This, however, was not substantiated.
In more recent times, however, the common belief is that one can be electrocuted while using a phone that is being charged. The belief emanated from a particular incident wherein a person answered a call on a cell phone that was plugged to a power outlet.
According to a tale published on cellphoneforums.net and other Internet sites, a call came through and a man answered it with the phone still connected to the outlet.
After a few seconds, electricity flowed into the cell phone unrestrained and the young man was thrown to the ground with a heavy thud.
His parents rushed to the room only to find him unconscious, with a weak heartbeat and burnt fingers.
He was rushed to the nearby hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival. Consequently, it was assumed that he was electrocuted.
Phone experts, however, repudiate this hypothesis on three grounds. First, they claim no other reports of people being electrocuted while using a charging cell phone has since been reported. Second, under normal circumstances, the current flowing into a charging cell phone ought not to be strong enough to kill anyone and third, neither manufacturers nor consumer agencies warn customers against using mobile phones while they are being charged.
Under the circumstances, it will seem erroneous to label the almost indispensable device “an instrument of death.”
However, in 2004, a Malaysian man was reportedly injured after his phone exploded while it was charging. Later that year, a man in Vietnam was said to have reported that his phone exploded while it was charging, wounding a bystander. Many other cases have since been reported.
According to a research carried out by mobile phone manufacturer, Nokia, counterfeit batteries are to be blamed for these explosions. Also, in each of the cases investigated, the battery in question proved not to be original to the unit and did not meet industry-standard safety measures. It also found that most of the short circuits that led to majority of these explosions were caused by the units having undergone traumatic events (such as being dropped) which jeopardised the integrity of poorly manufactured batteries.
In a bid to tackle the phone explosion problem, the industry and the Consumer Product Safety Commission said batteries commonly found in today’s cellular phones have a lot of energy in a small package. Li-Ion batteries are more sensitive to physical stress than alkaline batteries found in toys and flashlights and need to be treated with more care. Consequently, it issued safety tips for battery use. The CPSC warns against the use of incompatible cell phone batteries and chargers.
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