Gareth Clear suffered third-degree burns on his right thigh when his iPhone 6 exploded after falling off his bicycle this weekend.
The 36-year-old man who hails from Sydney, Australia, said that the handset in question flared up in his pocket after a "minor fall," and it was more than enough to burn up his biking shorts and cause the serious injury mentioned earlier.
"I just saw smoke coming out of my back pocket ... and then all of a sudden I felt this surging pain. I just remember looking at my leg and I had this black discharge all down my leg and this smell of phosphorus," he told The Sydney Morning Herald.
Clear had to undergo surgery and a skin graft to recover from the incident, but that's not holding him back from taking up the task of spreading awareness about the possible dangers of carrying around such devices.
To start things off, he spread his message on Twitter, posting a picture of the aftermath.
Quick warning: the image below may not be suitable for certain audiences because of the graphic content.
@BBC @TheSun @guardian @thetimes iPhone exploded in back pocket after bike fall. Skin graft surgery required pic.twitter.com/WOcGJHSSWN
— Gareth Clear (@gareth_clear) July 31, 2016
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Apple has yet to publicly give a statement regarding the matter, but the Cupertino brand and Clear are directly in contact with each other to sort things out.
It's also worth mentioning that this isn't the first time that an iPhone burst into flames. Back in March, a passenger of the Alaska Airlines had her iPhone 6 erupt during a flight.
However, Apple isn't the only manufacturer that faced such an issue, as a Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+ also shot fire back in May. In that case, it's presumed to have been caused by an overheating issue.
This just goes to show that there's always a risk when a lithium ion battery is involved, as it contains liquid that's prone to ignite, particularly when it's hit hard, short-circuited or overheated because of misuse.
Of course, the potential occurrence of batteries catching fire is not limited to smartphones, as there have been a couple of cases with e-cigarettes, and the incidents are more or less similar to what Clear had to go through.
One example that comes to mind is when an e-cigarette left 26-year-old Matthew Gilson with second- and third-degree burns after it blew up, causing him to seek medical attention and go under the knife too.
Do you have any experience with an exploding device too? If so, feel free to let us know in the comments section below.
