If you’re like everyone else, your iPhone or Android is with you almost, if not, all the time and almost, if not, everywhere. Wiley Daley, a 32 year old behavioral specialist at a middle school in Huntsville, Alabama, is like everyone else. He has, or rather had, his iPhone with him all the time and everywhere…even in his bed while sleeping.
The reason? He liked to charge his phone while he was sleeping so the phone would be ready to use any time during his waking day and night. Until, one night, he felt ‘…the eeriest, darkest, most demonic thing ever.” His dog tag necklace that he never takes off had caught onto the exposed prongs of the phone charger head and he was electrocuted.
Somehow, Daley was able to yank and pull off his necklace and the exposed prongs of the charger head with it. Smoke was coming out of the extension cord, his night shirt was singed, strips of skin and flesh were missing where the metal chain of his necklace had scorched his neck. Even the pattern of the necklace chain burned into his hand where he’d gripped the chain to tear it off. When he got to the ER at a Huntsville hospital, the on-duty physician, Dr. Benjamin Fail, estimated that Daley had received 110 volts of electricity from the exposed prongs of the charger head. “100 volts of electricity can kill you…He’s (Daley) lucky to be alive…Electrocution kills…”
According to the American Burn Association, there are approximately 400 electrocution deaths and 4,400 electrocution injuries a year. Most of these accidents happen in the workplace but the ABA recommends that people are cognizant of the dangers of hot plugs, sockets, appliances, electrical devices (such as Samsung Androids that exploded on airplanes that were later recalled) and extension cords. The US Consumer Product Safety Commission recommends that people discard old extension cords that don’t come with safety features such as polarized blades, safety closures and large plug faces.
And, William Daley recommends that people charge their phones in some other place far from their bed and far from their bedroom.
