Teen dies after likely handling cellphone in bath
A Lubbock, Texas, teenager who was visiting her father in Lovington died after apparently handling her charging cellphone while she was in the bathtub.
The girl was identified as 14-year-old Madison Coe by her grandmother, Donna O’Guinn, who spoke to KCBD-TV in Lubbock. The girl also was identified on a GoFundMe website established to help the family defray funeral expenses.
The accident occurred Sunday, just after midnight, Detective Sgt. David A. Miranda of the Lovington Police Department told the Journal on Tuesday.
Initial evidence at the Lovington home showed “signs consistent with that of electrocution,” Miranda said. But “the matter is still under investigation, which is normal for any unattended death.”
The child’s body was taken to the Office of the Medical Investigator in Albuquerque, where an autopsy has been performed, but a cause of death has not yet been made public. Yvonne Villalobos, OMI director of operations, would only say the autopsy had taken place.
Miranda confirmed that “there was a water presence, electricity presence, cellphone presence, charging cord presence and an extension cord presence.”
O’Guinn, the girl’s grandmother, said in a tearful on-air interview with KCBD-TV that “there was a burn mark on her hand, the hand that would have grabbed the phone, and it was just very obvious that that’s what had happened.”
She speculated that Madison, who was in the bathtub, was either plugging her phone in or grabbing the phone while it was plugged in.
Albuquerque electrician Carl Condit, business manager of Local 611 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, called the accident tragic and said there is a proliferation of cellphones, even among very young children.
He added that parents may give a child a cellphone as a way to keep track of them. But this should be accompanied by some basic education on the dangers of mixing water and electricity, which is also true when using any household device, he said.
Bottom line: Water can conduct electricity, he said.
A level of home safety can be added by making sure that GFCI, or Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter electrical outlets, have been installed in bathrooms, kitchens and other rooms in a home where water is present, Condit said.
A GFCI outlet, which monitors the flow of electrical current, automatically shuts off electricity if it senses current is flowing along an unintended path.
GFCI outlets are now required by code in specific areas of a home but, as a matter of safety, homeowners should replace regular outlets in those areas in older homes, he said.
Madison recently finished eighth grade at Terra Vista Middle School, just outside Lubbock, where she was a basketball player and played tuba in the school band. Her family was in the process of moving to Houston, where she would have attended high school.
Memorial services will be held Friday at 2 p.m. at the First United Methodist Church in Lovington and Saturday at 2 p.m. at Kings Ridge Church of Christ in Lubbock.