A 13-year old girl in Texas had a rude awakening in the middle of the night not because the alarm on her smartphone went off or she received an unexpected call, it was actually because her smartphone caught fire underneath her pillow. Ariel Tolfree placed her Samsung Galaxy S4 under her pillow before going to sleep. Thankfully she smelt it burning and was able to take action before the burning phone caused any damage to her person.
Tolfree’s dad told KDFW that the entire phone had melted, the plastic, the glass, everything. “You can’t even really tell that it was a phone.”
When she first woke up and smelt something burning she didn’t think that it was her smartphone that was cooking under her pillow. When the woke up the second time she saw it more prominently, it burnt through the bedding, mattress and pillow.
The family believes that this might have been caused by a replacement battery and it is not known whether the replacement battery was an authentic part or a counterfeit. There have already been many unfortunate incidents of burns and even death due to use of unauthorized and counterfeit products like batteries and charges.
To be fair to Samsung the device does have a warning that reads: “Covering the device with bedding, your body, thick clothing, or any other materials that significantly affect air flow may affect the performance of the phone and poses a possible risk of fire or explosion.”
But the company has vowed to replace Ariel Tolfree’s burnt Galaxy S4 as well as her singed bedding.