E cig explosion in Texas - guy dies

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chellie

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Just saw this. Do not know what type of device. Still looking. He went into a shop for help and it allegedly exploded in the parking lot of the vape shop. They did not sell him anything.

(I found a pic of his car --anyone recognize what it was? It just looks like the aftermath to me)

From Time.com "t..he incident occurred in the parking lot of a local vape shop on January 27. Shop managers told CBS DFW that Brown did not purchase anything, but was seeking help on how to use a Mechanical Mod vape pen.
Texas Man Dies After E-Cigarette Explodes in His Face and Severs an Artery

Very sad!
"
A Texas man died of a massive stroke after the e-cigarette he was using exploded and tore his carotid artery.

The Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s office says that William Brown died in a Fort Worth hospital on January 29 — just weeks shy of his 25th birthday. The death certificate says he died from cerebral infarction and herniation after debris from the exploding vape pen dissected his left carotid artery.

The explosion reportedly happened on January 27, in the parking lot of a store that sells smoking and vaping supplies.

The manager of Smoke and Vape DZ told CNN affiliate KTVT that he called an ambulance after the explosion.

Brown had gone into the shop to ask for help using his vape pen, but did not buy anything, according to KTVT. The shop said they don’t sell that brand of vape pen.

Brown was rushed to the hospital and his family told KTVT that he was put into a medically-induced coma and that x-rays showed that part of the e-cigarette was lodged in his throat.

“That went across his lip, apparently somehow, and cut his lip,” said Brown’s grandmother. “That three-piece thing went into his throat and stayed there,” his grandmother Alice Brown told KTVT.

She didn’t understand why doctors didn’t operate right away.

“He had a future ahead of him; a life ahead of him,” she said.

A spokeswoman for the JPS Health Network said she could not comment on the specifics of Brown’s case because of health privacy laws. She said they are continuing to communicate with Brown’s family and expressed their sincere condolences.

“We hold ourselves to the highest standards in providing high-quality healthcare and will take family concerns seriously as we review all that transpired,” she told CNN in a statement.

E-cigarettes and vape pens are battery-operated devices that heat a liquid to create an aerosol that can be inhaled like regular cigarette smoke. The liquid usually contains nicotine and can have flavoring, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The CDC says more than one in every 10 adults has tried an e-cigarette.

There were 195 separate e-cigarette fire and explosion incidents in the United States reported by the media between 2009 and 2016, according to a report by the US Fire Administration.

Last May, a man in St. Petersburg, Florida, was killed when his e-cigarette exploded and shot a piece of the device into his head."

(Source:
24-Year-Old Texas Man Suffers Massive Stroke, Dies After E-Cigarette Explodes in His Face)
 

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bombastinator

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This bit of news has gained a lot of traction at the major news outlets. The origional article apparently wasn’t very good. There is another thread on this Fort Worth man dies after vape pen explodes in his face

Latest info is it was an older mech mod which may or may not have been a “medical” device, and may or may not have actually come from that vape shop, meaning it’s possible it wasn’t new.
 

Bunnykiller

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odd... the article makes it sound like he was using it at the time of mishap... from the looks of the picture, it was sitting in the cup holder when it went off... also there "looks" as if there is a fair amount of something metallic in the bottom of the holder... dont know if its the mod of a bunch of coins which could have played part of the issue...
 

bombastinator

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Where is the pic of the car?

If it was a"pen style mech", don't most of those have the fire button on the bottom? If so it seems like standing it up in a cup holder is one of the dumbest things you could do, just behind purposefully shorting it out of course.
“Pen style” could mean just about anything. A lot of older mechs do have bottom buttons. a true pen style, which would mean an ego, an 801 device, a cigalike, or whatever weird proprietary concoction the “medical” folks in Colorado are selling would most likely have a side button though.

The problem is for a lot of people “pen style” just means round and taller than it is wide. It’s a pretty useless descriptor.
 

ScottP

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“Pen style” could mean just about anything. A lot of older mechs do have bottom buttons. a true pen style, which would mean an ego, an 801 device, a cigalike, or whatever weird proprietary concoction the “medical” folks in Colorado are selling would most likely have a side button though.

The problem is for a lot of people “pen style” just means round and taller than it is wide. It’s a pretty useless descriptor.

I get what a true "pen style" is, but in this case I take it as a tubular mech mod (since they specifically said it was a "Mechanical Mod vape pen") and I didn't know any of those had a side fire button. Also why I wanted to see the "aftermath" pic.

Something else, the shop may not have sold him anything, but did they tinker with or adjust his coil in any way? If they did and someone could prove it, they may have some liability.
 

bombastinator

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I get what a true "pen style" is, but in this case I take it as a tubular mech mod (since they specifically said it was a "Mechanical Mod vape pen") and I didn't know any of those had a side fire button. Also why I wanted to see the "aftermath" pic.

Something else, the shop may not have sold him anything, but did they tinker with or adjust his coil in any way? If they did and someone could prove it, they may have some liability.

Not if he put the silly thing down in his cup holder. The thing could have auto fired from the button being pressed by stuff in the cup holder.

My personal first reaction is to chalk this one up to Darwinism. The article from VOX does make a point though that unventilated tube mechs are still occasionally being sold in the United States due to lack of regulation.
 

ScottP

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Not if he put the silly thing down in his cup holder. The thing could have auto fired from the button being pressed by stuff in the cup holder.

My personal first reaction is to chalk this one up to Darwinism. The article from VOX does make a point though that unventilated tube mechs are still occasionally being sold in the United States due to lack of regulation.

I agree with this all. This is also why I have always supported REASONABLE safety regulations. Such as vent holes. Personally I think all mechs should contain at a minimum a fuse and probably a thermal breaker to prevent shorts or long mis-fires from becoming catastrophic. This one reg would cut out a lot of these problems without preventing people from vaping how they want.
 

Smokey James

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Where is the pic of the car?

If it was a"pen style mech", don't most of those have the fire button on the bottom? If so it seems like standing it up in a cup holder is one of the dumbest things you could do, just behind purposefully shorting it out of course.
I hate this "Vaping is deadly" propaganda!!!
98% of these incidents occur when someone tries vaping using a mechanical mod! Either they short the battery, or they don't know Ohms Law, and over draw the battery till it vents from heat! I've been vaping for five years, and I've yet to have one explode! Yeah I had a battery vent on me, but I wasn't holding it. I was in the vape shop when it popped off in my truck! Got too hot! If you can't take the time to learn about what your using, stick to cigarettes. They won't kill you as fast!

Sent from my Moto E (4) using Tapatalk
 
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ScottP

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I hate this "Vaping is deadly" propaganda!!!
98% of these incidents occur when someone tries vaping using a mechanical mod! Either they short the battery, or they don't know Ohms Law, and over draw the battery till it vents from heat! I've been vaping for five years, and I've yet to have one explode! Yeah I had a battery vent on me, but I wasn't holding it. I was in the vape shop when it popped off in my truck! Got too hot! If you can't take the time to learn about what your using, stick to cigarettes. They won't kill you as fast!

Having a device that when you press the button it gets hot and then putting it down in a way that the button is being constantly pressed is just dumb. If you had a push button cigarette lighter I am sure you have the common sense not to put it somewhere the button would be pressed without your knowledge, right?

While I understand your point of view, I have to somewhat disagree. Most people don't even know they are supposed to know ohm's law and battery safety. They go into a shop and get sold something that sounds easy, "no settings, just insert a battery and vape" OR they buy something online b/c their buddy told them this mod "hits hard" and NOBODY bothers to tell them they need an "Into to Electrical Circuits" class to use the thing. Again, IF he put a bottom fire mech mod in a cup holder standing up, then Ohm's Law would have been irrelevant and it wouldn't have mattered if he was Georg Ohm himself, it was still stupid. Of course we do NOT know for sure if this is what happened, I am basing this off of what others said they saw in photographs. We may never truly know what happened.

I agree the problem is 98%+ with mechs. This is why I think mech mods should at a minimum be required to have a fuse and a thermal breaker in them to prevent explosions from shorts or long mis-fires. To prevent the ill informed from killing themselves with ignorance. They will still be "unregulated" mechs and "hit" like a mech just with some minimal protections.
 
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Shawn Hoefer

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I read somewhere that it was a brass Smok-e Mountain Vanilla mech. No idea if it was a clone or not. Also, no idea what was on top. Further, I read that the store sold him nothing as they claimed not to support that kind of device, but that they did call the ambulance.

Regardless, this kind of reporting makes me very angry. For starters, it's singling out vapers. According to my quick google search, about 100 people in the US are killed with a gun daily, but that doesn't make national news. A similar google search turned up a number of 560 per year killed by "smoking materials" fires... dropped cigarettes, tipped pipes, etc. That doesn't make the news either. Follow that up with a severe lack of information... what mod, what atomizer, what battery, was it operator error or a device failure. These are all things that are needed to keep other people safe. Instead, they report on the sensationalism, and nothing else.

Garbage.

I feel for the man's family... really... But adequate reporting on earlier incidents might have prevented this one.
 

chellie

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And although this man was severely hurt his mother is saying that the hospital was waiting to operate on him - that is was not pressing - even though something was embedded in his beck. During this wait, he was then found on the floor - had a stroke and complications and died so his family may have a claim against the hospital.

He did go into the vape shop for help allegedly and they did not sell him anything so apparently, he was having some type of issue with his mech.
 
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chellie

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I read somewhere that it was a brass Smok-e Mountain Vanilla mech. No idea if it was a clone or not. Also, no idea what was on top. Further, I read that the store sold him nothing as they claimed not to support that kind of device, but that they did call the ambulance.

Regardless, this kind of reporting makes me very angry. For starters, it's singling out vapers. According to my quick google search, about 100 people in the US are killed with a gun daily, but that doesn't make national news. A similar google search turned up a number of 560 per year killed by "smoking materials" fires... dropped cigarettes, tipped pipes, etc. That doesn't make the news either. Follow that up with a severe lack of information... what mod, what atomizer, what battery, was it operator error or a device failure. These are all things that are needed to keep other people safe. Instead, they report on the sensationalism, and nothing else.

Garbage.

I feel for the man's family... really... But adequate reporting on earlier incidents might have prevented this one.
Of course, it's awful when someone loses their life. I know that the other person that died in Florida, the TV Producer, was using a Smok-e Mountain Vanilla. Have not seen anything in print yet as to what this man was using other than it was a mech.
 
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BillW50

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To prevent the ill informed from killing themselves with ignorance.
It isn't always ignorance. I bought a Think Vape Finder 250C back in October. A few weeks ago, I finally opened the box. I set it up to vape and I used it for a few hours. And I just pulled it out of my pocket and was going to play with the door since it was hard to open. I had taken the door off and the batteries were radiating lots of heat. The outside the mod wasn't even slightly warm yet.

So I quickly ejected the batteries and I just happen to have an IR probe handy and the batteries were 170°F. I checked the voltages and they were 3.7v each. They were around 4.1v earlier. Connected the mod to the computer and the DNA250C seemed to be fine. Ohmed the power connections from the battery sled and it is nearly a dead short between the plus and the negative. My guess is the wire is pinched inside of the mod and the insulation finally gave away. That day I was lucky it didn't explode in my pocket or my face.
 

bombastinator

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It isn't always ignorance. I bought a Think Vape Finder 250C back in October. A few weeks ago, I finally opened the box. I set it up to vape and I used it for a few hours. And I just pulled it out of my pocket and was going to play with the door since it was hard to open. I had taken the door off and the batteries were radiating lots of heat. The outside the mod wasn't even slightly warm yet.

So I quickly ejected the batteries and I just happen to have an IR probe handy and the batteries were 170°F. I checked the voltages and they were 3.7v each. They were around 4.1v earlier. Connected the mod to the computer and the DNA250C seemed to be fine. Ohmed the power connections from the battery sled and it is nearly a dead short between the plus and the negative. My guess is the wire is pinched inside of the mod and the insulation finally gave away. That day I was lucky it didn't explode in my pocket or my face.
So: possible major manufacturing or design error in the thinkvape finder. Good to know. You’d expect thinkvape would want to know that too.
 

AttyPops

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Not if he put the silly thing down in his cup holder. The thing could have auto fired from the button being pressed by stuff in the cup holder.

My personal first reaction is to chalk this one up to Darwinism. The article from VOX does make a point though that unventilated tube mechs are still occasionally being sold in the United States due to lack of regulation.

Or due to regulation....;)
Why safer vaping devices that don't explode will not be available in the U.S.

Yeah, but you can't fix or even safeguard stupid-use with mechs. The low-ohm mech craze won't even allow the old-time fuses. They used to make those back when we used sane ohms; remember vape-safe fuses? But now, IDK of any that would work for "sub-ohm" mech vaping.

And the FDA is in the way of standards and new-tech. "...the agency has taken several steps"....bull----.
:2c:
 

CMD-Ky

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Interesting article, too many folks believe that the government is wiser than us all. Turns out the bell curve functions in government just as it does elsewhere.

Or due to regulation....;)
Why safer vaping devices that don't explode will not be available in the U.S.

Yeah, but you can't fix or even safeguard stupid-use with mechs. The low-ohm mech craze won't even allow the old-time fuses. They used to make those back when we used sane ohms; remember vape-safe fuses? But now, IDK of any that would work for "sub-ohm" mech vaping.

And the FDA is in the way of standards and new-tech. "...the agency has taken several steps"....bull----.
:2c:
 

AttyPops

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Turns out the bell curve functions in government just as it does elsewhere.
Yeah, that's nearly a universal rule.

We can (and we have!) done much better, historically, with our government. Now, it's too controlled by special interests mucking up the works. And that's actually due to the "lack of regulation" and mismanagement of government and economics. But I don't want to digress too much here. We used to regulate and manage a lot better, pre-1980's (or really 1970's).

Back then, congress would just have mandated the safe devices and standards. It would have been so simple...so logical.

But you can't stop people from making mechs, even if they do it "illegally". Whatayagonnado? There's still people that blame politicians for seat-belts too. Some people just don't like rules of any kind. What we have now is worse, though. We have the wrong rules.
 

JUMA55

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I read somewhere that it was a brass Smok-e Mountain Vanilla mech. No idea if it was a clone or not. Also, no idea what was on top. Further, I read that the store sold him nothing as they claimed not to support that kind of device, but that they did call the ambulance.

Regardless, this kind of reporting makes me very angry. For starters, it's singling out vapers. According to my quick google search, about 100 people in the US are killed with a gun daily, but that doesn't make national news. A similar google search turned up a number of 560 per year killed by "smoking materials" fires... dropped cigarettes, tipped pipes, etc. That doesn't make the news either. Follow that up with a severe lack of information... what mod, what atomizer, what battery, was it operator error or a device failure. These are all things that are needed to keep other people safe. Instead, they report on the sensationalism, and nothing else.

Garbage.

I feel for the man's family... really... But adequate reporting on earlier incidents might have prevented this one.

Don't forget all the lives saved by folks vaping in bed rather than smoking.
 
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