Nokia battery explodes, 2 hurt

2007-10-03 08:47

Nerissa Govender

Pietermaritzburg - A Pietermaritzburg businessman and his family are lucky to be alive after receiving an electric shock from the man's cellphone battery, which exploded while being charged.

Ismail Noorgat, the owner of On The Run convenience stores in Orthmann Road, told The Witness on Tuesday he was grateful that his wife and two children, one of whom is a six-week-old baby, are alive.

Noorgat said that at about 22:00 last Monday, he put his Nokia 6230i cellphone on a charger on the dressing table of his bedroom, about three metres away from where he was sleeping.

Noorgat said he discovered only afterwards that this particular model of phone was one of a batch of almost 46 million using faulty BL-5C batteries. Nokia has been involved in a recall of these batteries through extensive advertising, which Noorgat admitted he was unaware of.

Noorgat's wife Shazia woke up screaming at about 01:00, after hearing an "explosion".

Noorgat also awoke to what he described as a buzzing sound, and tried to ask his wife what was wrong but couldn't speak. At this point, none had realised what was happening. "I eventually got up from my bed once the current had left me," he said.

Upon investigating what had just happened, he and his wife realised that the cellphone battery had exploded and popped out from the back of the phone, while the phone remained attached to the charger.

Noorgat said he assumed that due to the force of the explosion, the battery flew across the bedroom and landed underneath the bed.

At this stage, Noorgat also discovered that his left hand was badly burnt, and there were also minor burns under his arm and foot, and burns through the T-shirt he was wearing at the time.

Shazia's gown was also visibly burnt, with "a hole the size of a twenty-cent coin", while the six-week-old baby, who was sleeping on his mother's stomach at the time, was burnt on his lip. The baby's clothing was blackened.

Shazia said she saw something that she described as "lightning flash across the room", and became hysterical, not knowing what was happening to her husband and thinking that her baby had died. Noorgat said the whole incident lasted about 10 seconds.

Noorgat told The Witness that he is in the process of investigating what legal measures he can take against Nokia.

- The Witness