Most of us are guilty of charging our smartphones in bed next to us, keeping it close in spite of the inherent risk involved. A 32-year-old man in Alabama came up close with the consequences of doing this when he nearly died of electrocution.
The unfortunate incident began on the night of March 22, when Wiley Day plugged his iPhone in for charging through a cheap extension cord lying on his bed. He woke up the next morning to a feeling of heat and electric shock which knocked him out of bed onto the floor.
In what Day describes as a one in a million chance, the dog-tag necklace he wears on a daily basis got tangled up in the exposed prongs of the charger head. The part was loosely plugged into the extension cord. His metal necklace immediately became a conductor for electricity.
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Day says that he felt a pressure around his neck and his vision started to give out. Thankfully, he was able to rip the dog-tag away from his neck even though he shouldn’t have been able to move. He then managed to shout out for help and subsequently drove himself to the hospital.
At this point, Day’s shirt was burnt and there were strips of skin and flesh missing in the places where the necklace had seared his neck. His hands bore the pattern of the metal chain. Doctors later determined that he had suffered second- and third-degree burns.
Day is convinced that his dog-tag would have killed him if he hadn’t thrown it off in the nick of time. He may have gotten hit with 110 volts of electricity. Putting that in perspective, 100 volts is enough to kill a person. Day is now charging his iPhone in the kitchen, far away from his bedroom.