A Bondi man has had two layers of skin burnt off his thigh after a “one in one million” accident saw his phone explode in his back pocket.
Gareth Clear was riding around the Manly Dam bike track on Sunday when he came off his bike and landed awkwardly on his iPhone 6 in his pocket, reports The Daily Telegraph.
Moments later Mr Clear felt his skin burning as he saw smoke coming from his phone before it exploded.
Even though the 36-year-old burnt his hands trying to remove the phone quickly it melted through his pants and stripped away two layers of skin on his upper right thigh.
Mr Clear has undergone skin grafting at the Royal North Shore Hospital and his recovery is expected to take weeks as he has to remain in a drip to prevent infection.
Mr Clear, originally from Winchester in the UK, told reporters that the six-month-old phone did not spontaneously combust.
“It was a one in one million chance I hit a part of the phone which pierced the lithium battery and it exploded,” Mr Clear said.
Dr Da-Wei Wang from the UNSW faculty of chemical engineering told the Daily Telegraph that the explosion of lithium ion batteries in mobile phones is not uncommon.
“I think many examples show that, if you search on Google there are many images of mobile phones which have been overcharged, which may cause it to be overheated,” he said.
Dr Wang pointed to overheating and a design flaw as a possible cause for the incident.
The Daily Telegraph reports that Mr Clear said Apple yesterday told him they would investigate the incident but an Apple spokeswoman declined to comment on the story.
PHOTO CREDIT: Gareth Clear/ Twitter
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