Courtesy of Fox 4 DallasIf you’re reading this and have ever fallen asleep with your cell phone on your bed, either accidentally or on purpose, you may want to change your habits.
Ariel Tolfree, a 13-year-old girl in North Texas, attached to her phone as most teens are, slept with it on her bed. The result? Her Samsung Galaxy S4 slipped underneath her pillow sometime during the night and caught on fire.
The burning smell woke her up.
“I didn’t think much of it, so I went back to sleep, and then I woke up again and it was more prominent,” Ariel said.
“The whole phone melted. The plastic, the glass. You can’t even really tell that it’s a phone,” her father, Thomas Tolfree, explained.
A Samsung spokesperson noted that the battery in Ariel’s phone was a replacement, and not the original Samsung product. Although the company agrees that they need to educate their customers on proper behavior when it comes to replacement batteries, this kind of accident is warned against in their user guide. The warnings state that the phones should not be covered with any material, including bedding, because there’s a risk of restricting air flow, thereby causing a fire.
Thomas thinks that warning should be in larger print, since it’s so important.
His daughter has learned her lesson, we hope; she doesn’t think anyone should sleep with their phones. Instead, the phone should be on a nightstand.
Samsung has asked the Tolfrees to send the mangled phone so they can investigate further, and they will reimburse the family for the damaged bedding.
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