Injuries from e-cig explosions on the rise
Rechargeable batteries blamed, but advocates say risk is remote
DETROIT — Scott Becker was sitting at a conference table conducting a work meeting when the lithium-ion battery that powers his e-cigarette exploded in his pocket.
“It was like having a firework go off in your pocket,” said Becker, 46, of Washington Township. “I threw my chair back, I started hitting my pants and my hip. I saw the sparks shooting out of my jeans.”
Becker suffered thirddegree burns, and a year later, they still require treatment three times a day. His medical bills are more than $150,000.
Injuries like Becker’s are becoming more common, said Karla Klas, managing director for injury prevention and community outreach at the Trauma Burn Center at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
The batteries can explode with enough force to knock out teeth and crack vertebrae if they fail in the mouth of the user.
“We’ve been seeing some pretty deep burns,” Klas said. Exaggerated fears
Klas made a presentation on the topic at the American Burn Association’s annual conference last month in Boston. While she hasn’t heard of any deaths caused by exploding e-cigarettes, an informal poll of representatives from about 20 burn centers around the country tallied almost 300 recent burn cases that required hospitalization, she said.
“Not only are the burns deep, but because of the chemicals that are in the batteries, it’s almost like they are having a chemical burn on top of the thermal burn,” Klas said.
The Federal Aviation Administration banned the devices from checked baggage because of the fire risk.
Vaping proponents insist the incidents are rare and preventable through proper use of the products and their batteries.
“When used and charged properly, those lithium-ion batteries pose no more of a fire risk than other products that use other similar batteries,” said Gregory Conley, president of the American Vaping Association, a nonprofit group that advocates vaping as a way to help people stop smoking. “It is a remote risk that is almost entirely avoidable.”
Conley said he worries that exaggerated fears of fires could cause some people to avoid vaping and instead continue a deadly habit, cigarette smoking. But critics say the problem is real and it’s growing.
“Even if it’s somewhat rare, these things are so dangerous that when it happens, these are horrific injuries,” said Wolfgang Mueller, a Farmington Hills lawyer who has sued on behalf of three injury victims, including Becker.
Mueller, who worked as a mechanical engineer before studying law, said the batteries can short-circuit internally because of poor manufacturing or externally by coming in contact with metal in someone’s pocket, like coins, keys or jewelry.
“That’s what makes it so important for these retailers and manufacturers to warn the consumer,” he said. Power of TNT
E-cigarettes or vaping pens were first patented in 2003 and became available in the U.S. in 2007, according to a 2014 report by the U.S. Fire Administration. Users pour oils, which typically include nicotine, into the tank of the pen.
With the press of button, a built-in battery-powered heating element quickly heats the oils to about 400 degrees. At that temperature, the oils don’t combust, but they do form a vapor that can then be inhaled.
With about 44 million smokers in America, an estimated 9 million to 10 million people have used a vaping pen in the past 30 days, Conley said.
“You have a product that has literally helped 2.5 million Americans quit the deadliest habit on the planet,” Conley said.
But generating all that heat instantly requires a ready energy source, and traditional disposable batteries run down quickly in the devices. Most vape pens come with rechargeable lithium-ion batteries ,and vape shops sell spares for when those run down.
The batteries carry about 20 percent of the power of TNT weighing the same amount, said Daniel Doughty, a chemist who worked for the U.S. Department of Energy for 20 years and now runs Battery Safety Consulting in Albuquerque, N.M.
“If they are made in a quality manufacturing facility, that stored energy is released in the manner you want, when you want it,” he said. “If it goes off unintended or in an uncontrolled manner, that energy is significant.”