Posted on 06/20/2019 4:36:15 PM PDT by BenLurkin
The batteries themselves do not explode. If shorted, they can vent rather violently. The danger is if the e-cig design doesn’t have adequate vent holes to allow the battery to flare (like a cell phone would) and not trap the pressure like a gun barrel.
Protection circuitry is a good safeguard but is not failure proof. Same goes for any device that uses lithium batteries but is relegated to a fire hazard rather than a projectile.
I have make my own for around $3 per 100ml. Don’t tell the Feds!
Almost everyone used to smoke, that was just the culture. The vaping fad may reveal another as yet unknown disease that may kill many. Popcorn lung is what they are calling the first thing to show up.
No one forces people to pick up a vice, it’s just human nature to try things.
The results can be sad.
No, it doesn’t. What part of the force did not hit his teeth but below his teeth do you not grasp? Also a fire is simply not sufficient to break a mandible. Nothing was said about burns in the mouth. In fact, the only burns were minor and on the lip, yet the focus of force is below the lips. It simply doesn’t make medical sense.
If it doesn’t make sense, it’s a lie. — Judge Judy
I mentioned that, but the location of the mandible damage doesn’t match that scenario either.
Most high end phones are now water and dust resistant. No vents. They still do not explode. They may erupt into a conflagration, a fire.
Sorry, that came across stronger than I intended.
What have you eaten in your lifetime? drank? :)
MOST of us put ridiculous things into our bodies.
Just not usually things that will blow up
Just lead to heart attacks and strokes and cancer :)
Best guess I had.
Now I got nuttin’
I think that's it. The e-cigarrette acted like a primitive "cannon" with the exploding battery propelling pieces of the cigarette holder into the kid's mouth.
My best guess is the kid was vaping, bringing the e-cig up to his mouth, and fell, face first, hitting the e-cig on the ground, which drove the mouth piece of the e-cig into his mandible just below where his teeth erupt from the jaw, one of the weaker areas of the jaw. This cracked the jaw vertically and shattered the mandible in that area. In addition, it broke the e-cig tank, splashing hot juice on his lip, accounting for the minor lip burn. In the fall, the battery may have ruptured striking the ground. . .
Someone got the idea they could sue the e-cigarette maker by claiming the e-cig exploded, causing his injuries. But his injuries are inconsistent with such a scenario. Alternately, he also may have been drinking, and falling down drunk, which caused him to fall, and the e-cig story is what he told his parents to cover up what actually happened.
Then there’d be far more damage to the soft tissue of his chin and lips. The “cannon” scenario is inconsistent with the injuries which are mostly internal, not external. Even it an explosion occurred internally, much more soft tissue should have been blown out than is described!
The mass of an e-cig is on the wrong end for the physics to work. The plastic walls of the “cannon’s” barrel would fail before any pressure could possibly build to propel the mass with enough force to break a mandible, one of the strongest bones in the human body. . . and, once again, Lithium Ion batteries do not “explode, regardless of what breathless hyped news accounts claim; they expand, heat up, conflagrate, and, at worst, burst into hot, rapid flames. They are not an explosive. They do not put out high pressures.
Instead, the damage seems to be from something hitting him as if the lips were out of the way. His chin was swollen but not cut when the doctors saw him. That was from the broken jaw. Take your finger and put it on your the top of your lower teeth in the middle and move it down one-half to three-quarters of an inch, a good way below the top edge of your gums, and move it over a bit to the right of the center line. That’s the center of the force of the impact that broke his mandible and center lower teeth roots. No damage was done to his upper teeth at all. No damage to his chin or lips, except a lip minor burn. Yet the treating doctors described the mandible injury as what he’d expect to have been from a “car accident”. That’s a lot of force! That is not the signature of what was described by him. No “explosion”. No “cannon”.
Play stupid games. Win stupid prizes.
For the love of all that is decent - we have all these TV commercials about people who are horribly sick and dying from cancer presumably caused by cigarettes. But people still “light up”
I wonder how many times this 17 year old has used these things to have one blow-up in his face.
Darwin Award material. (and I know that I sound mean and soulless, but some days I can’t keep it all in)
Titanium is just too springy for me to get a wrap. I tried about a half dozen times, and gave up on it. Stainless clapton wire is so easy even compared to kanthal and nickle.
All three pointed to the same point of impact exactly where I said it had hit, below the gum line directly on the mandible. Our top doc, who is forensically trained and has testified in many court cases (although he’d spend a lot more time studying a case for such testimony), even pointed out that he saw the pattern of a rectangular object, similar and consistent to an e-cigarette, or pipe stem, mouthpiece, horizontally imprinted in the bone in the impact zone.
All three said they had seen damage similar to that from FALLS where something in the mouth had struck the ground or something on the ground had impacted the face. No burns of any consequence meant the e-cigarette had not caused the damage. One doctor had experience with patients who had had e-cigarettes that burst into flames. These patients all had burns on hands and on their faces, but, he said, they had no internal oral damage.
Not a single one of the three doctors could see any way a Lithium Ion battery could “explode” with enough force to break a mandible. Our senior doctor had been an engineer before becoming a doctor. He said the amount of force is only consistent with a fall or being struck by some massive force. He suggested a bicycle accident with the e-cigarette in the kids mouth, which would account for it moving down below the lip line.
Your post have been very informative.
I’ve never used titanium as my 24 gauge Kanthal wire has been so good to me so far.
Cheap and effective.
Interesting observations. Thank you for sharing.
I can’t recall when reading the article if it was mentioned whether the kid’s family had instituted any lawsuits against the mfg of the e cig or the battery. If they have, and the observations you noted are accurate, a trial could be quite informative and interesting.
When my daughter was young she would holler at me if I had a toothpick in my mouth when I was driving. An old habit which she forced me to abandon. Intelligent kids can be annoying at times /chuckle.
Well it is always possible that kid fabricated the story in some way.
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