Everything you love is trying to kill you, as this Sydney man who suffered third degree burns from his exploding iPhone goes to show. Gareth Clear was mountain biking by himself Sunday in Manly Dam when he fell off his bike and his iPhone, the Daily Mail reported.
The 36-year-old told the Daily Mail he got up from the minor fall and noticed smoke coming from his behind. He then felt a "searing pain" on the right side of his butt, which he called "pretty freaking painful. "That's when Clear saw that his biking shorts and clothing underneath were melting, causing his iPhone to stick to his leg. "It had to have been more than 100 degrees," Clear said.
Clear tried to take off his melting pants and phone but burned his fingers trying to do so. He was finally able to get the phone off when he punched it. Clear then waited for about 20 minutes before trying to take the phone with him. He had to use two pieces of wood to pick it up.
At Royal North Shore Hospital, Clear was told the phone had burnt through three layers of skin. He was sent to the hospital's burn unit to get a skin graft—an operation that removes skin from one area and attaches it to another.
"It's a bit random, the thing to be very specific about, the phone did hit the ground, it didn't just spontaneously combust. It was a one in one million chance I hit a part of the phone which pierced the lithium battery and it exploded," he told the Daily Telegraph.
But Clear won't be taking any more chances and said he won't take his iPhone biking again. He called it a "mini bomb" and a "tragedy waiting to happen."
"Every iPhone is the same—if it happens to one, it will happen to another one. I was just lucky I was wearing pretty thick clothing and it was on my lower body" he said.
The Daily Mail reported Apple has contacted Clear and is investigating the incident. You can see more photos of Clear's injury here.
