14 DAY TRIAL // A new smartphone has caught fire, this time with severe injuries suffered by the owner who was holding the phone in hand at the time of the incident.
Nidhi Kapoor explains in a Facebook post that her HTC 10 exploded all of a sudden without even being plugged in to a charger, causing burns to her fingers and an eye infection, most likely because of smoke or parts of the phone or battery that were thrown out following the blow.
The phone was purchased in January, the owner says, and it showed no signs of physical damage, which seems to indicate that the device indeed suffered from overheating in the battery compartment and which eventually caused it to explode.
“My HTC 10 exploded which burned my fingers and gave an infection in the eye. I purchased on 17th january 2017. It has been a week and since then HTC have given me no response. All they ask is my email id and imei number which i have given so many times,” the woman posted.
“It was not even charging when the phone exploded and not even on call. I am not able to work and even do properly day to day activities. I demand some answers for this. It could have been worst if the phone would hv exploded in any kind of transportation and it would have been easy to declare me a terrorist.”
HTC already investigating
Even though she blamed HTC for not getting in touch to investigate the incident, the company actually did post a response to her Facebook message, requiring more information via DM.
There are no photos with the device after the incident, but the woman did post a picture showing what she claims to be her bandaged hand, though this is clearly not enough to confirm that it was all caused by an HTC smartphone that exploded.
HTC is reportedly investigating as we speak and it’s pretty clear that it’s too early to draw any conclusions, and there’s very little chance for this to point to a widespread defect affecting more phones.