Charging iPhone While Asleep Nearly Killed Man

An Alabama man nearly lost his life while asleep after he was electrocuted by an iPhone charger. The incident has exposed the risks of charging a phone when in bed.

Wiley Day, 32, went to bed on March 22 with his iPhone plugged in at his bedside. The next morning as he was about to rise, a chain around his neck got entangled around the charger’s exposed connector prongs which had came out loose from an extension cord, The Washington Post reports. The chain channeled electricity meant for charging the iPhone to his body, throwing him out of bed.

https://www.facebook.com/wiley.day/posts/10100575938896404

Before he realized what was happening, he had suffered third-degree burns around his neck. Day recollected his ordeal describing narrowing of vision and pounding heartbeat as he lay dazed while being electrocuted. Hearing his screams, a relative at rushed to his room to find him with burn injuries and a hole in his shirt. By then, he had yanked off the chain but not without causing burn injuries to his hands resembling the chain’s patterns. The iPhone’s extension charging cord had smoke coming out of it.

“You don’t feel the electrocution,” he recently said before an audience at a worship center with his neck still bandaged. “What you feel is a crunching pressure around your neck. I describe it as the most demonic feeling that you should never feel.”

https://www.facebook.com/wiley.day/posts/10100573763296324

“Again, y’all I’m so blessed to be alive. God you’re so faithful!! I thank you guys for all your calls and text,” he said in a Facebook post. “Continue to lift me up in prayer, My pain level is only about a 2, but I don’t know what’s to come.”

Though he managed to stand up after the incident, the doctor he saw hospitalized Day immediately. Doctors reportedly said he was lucky to have survived the phone charging shock that could have been fatal. The electricity meant for charging a phone can easily kill a human.

While he recollected his miraculous survival, Day’s friends on Facebook admitted sleeping with a charging phone at bedside.

“I read this story and decided to look you up and tell you how happy I am that you are ok. I also sleep with my phone charging beside me. I never realized anything like this could happen.”

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Day warned against the practice. “I’m happy to be a miracle, but most happy to be an example for those who were unaware of the dangers of charging electronics while sleeping!” he said in another post.

Many instances of charging phones electrocuting users have been reported in the past. Apple investigated reports of a woman’s death in China in 2013, due to electrocution after she answered a call when her iPhone was charging. In January, a man in Indonesia was found dead by his landlord with a phone in hand. Electrocution was established as the cause of death.

In March, a man in London was electrocuted while having a bath with a charging iPhone on his chest. The Daily Mail reported the death of Richard Bull, also 32, who was charging his phone with an extension cable, just like Day.

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According to The Washington Post, the American Burn Association considers extension cords a threat and has issued guidelines for safe use including discarding damaged cords and advising against the use of charging cords without safety features.

“The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission estimates that about 4,700 residential fires originate in extension cords each year, killing 50 people and injuring 280 others.”

As for Day, he says he is committed to reaching as many people as he can to convey that a freak accident involving a charging phone does not always offer chances of a miraculous survival.

“I will go anywhere in this world to testify the goodness of God and how He spared my life! I’ve read post after post how people do exactly what I did every night.”

[Featured Image by AntonioGuillem/Thinkstock]