Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Samsung Galaxy Battery Burns Ontario University Student Bedroom

Hope Casserly talks via Skype about a night she says she'll never forget, after she woke to a fire caused by her exploding cellphone.
Hope Casserly talks via Skype about a night she says she'll never forget, after she woke to a fire caused by her exploding cellphone. CBC
Ontario university student Hope Casserly will never forget the night of Oct. 22, when she was awakened at around 1:30 a.m. by a loud popping sound.

She says she is still stunned by what happened next.

"My back was to the phone and ah — I saw a light going across my shoulder, which would be the inside of the battery on fire. It hit the wall and fell onto my bed," she said.

"I realized it was a fire and so I half sat up and put out the fire with my pillow ... looked over and realized there was another fire and put that out with my pillow again and … turned on all the lights to see what happened."


Casserly had left her Samsung Ace II x on her night table before falling asleep around 11:30 p.m. She says it was not plugged in and was screen-side up.

She believes the inside of the battery caught fire and exploded — flying off the night table, bouncing off a wall, then landing on her duvet, which started the fire.

Casserly, a fourth-year University of Guelph computer science student who shares a home with two other people, says the battery casing also went flying across the room, causing a second fire.

"At first I was thinking, did my light bulb explode?" she told Go Public. "But that didn't makes sense, because my lights obviously weren't on so it wouldn't be my light bulb. And then I realized my bed was on fire, so that scared me even more."

"Afterwards I realized like, how severe the situation could have ended up and that frightened me quite a bit."

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