Man Says E-Cigarette Explosion Destroyed 7 Of His Teeth

Image courtesy of Andrew Hall

A fiery explosion anywhere on your body will never feel good, but one Idaho man says he suffered what we can only imagine to be an intense pain when his e-cigarette exploded inside his mouth, obliterating seven of his teeth and leaving him with second-degree burns.

The man wrote in a Facebook post (warning: graphic photos) that has now been widely shared, that he was getting ready for work on Saturday morning when his vaporizing pen blew up in his face.

“I’ve been doing this for about a year now and assure you I did not do anything I wasn’t supposed to (battery was in right, always had the shop put it together when I first bought it and add things and maintenance it the right way while taking their advice),” he wrote from the hospital, “but it exploded in my face. I’ve lost at least 7 teeth, 2nd degree burns to face and neck and have been pulling chunks of plastic, teeth and foreign objects from mouth, throat, and lips.”

He attached some pretty gross photos to the post to show the aftermath, saying he’s going to vape no more.

“I just want to bring to light [that] this is possible that they can explode without warning. I would have said, ‘No way that’s possible,’ until now,” he wrote.

On Monday, he also shared a few photos of the damage the explosion did to his bathroom. As of Tuesday morning, he said he was home from the hospital, and hoping to figure out a way to get back to work — “and get some teeth back in my mouth as well.”

This is far from the first time an e-cigarette has gone boom, including an incident in Oct. 2015 when a man said one of the devices exploded in his hand. These kinds of cases prompted New York Senator Chuck Schumer to urge the Food and Drug Administration and the Consumer Product Safety Commission in December to use their powers to take immediate steps to protect consumers from “potentially dangerous electronic cigarettes” that could explode.

“It’s radio silence from both the industry and the feds, so that’s why I’m sounding the alarm,” he said at the time. “The CPSC and FDA should investigate and determine which e-cigarette batteries and devices are the most volatile, and require a recall to make sure these explosions stop.”

[via Gizmodo]

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