Rechargeable battery explodes - one man dead!

[rock soderstrom]

In Hamburg exploded a battery while charging yesterday. It was an AA or AAA type. Fragments of the battery penetrated the body of the victim like projectiles.He was almost immediately dead, even professional resuscitation measures on site and later in a nearby hospital could not save the man!

I have heard stories of exploding batteries all my life, but I did not expect such small batteries to build up so much kinetic energy.

I work with this kind of rechargeable batteries almost on a daily basis. What went wrong here?

 

[gyraf]

There'll be a technical accident commission surely, and in due time we will not be able to not know the reason, if I know medias right..  ;D

Jakob E.

 

[PRR]

> In Hamburg exploded a battery while charging

News reports are on-line.

The report is of a *charger* exploding.

https://apnews.com/0afd9a6139cd40d88ad3c2ffa840520b

Since this seems to be a police report, more technical details may be coming.

Not all accident reports are hushed-up. The US NTSC recently released their investigation of an air-crash in Texas (I lost a long-time friend). There was a major fire in Steckborn on December 21, 2015.

 

[zamproject]

Hi

I have heard stories of exploding batteries all my life, but I did not expect such small batteries to build up so much kinetic energy.

Me neither 

I guess IF a small metallic part get the right angle IF it target around heart, IF it don't hit any bone and IF cutting a critical part like arteries aroud heart, then you can die. I suppose a razor blade lunched at 100 km/h can do it
But what unlucky man...
You have more chance to win the big lottery than diying like this  :-X

Best
Zam

 

[scott2000]

Wow....I use a AA/AAA charger..... Hope they figure out what happened..... Sounds bizarre.....

 

[Tubetec]

Ive had a few aa's and aaa's go bad on me while on the charger , the foil shrink wrap distorted and there was quite a lot of heat ,luckily no explosion though . I remember years ago most small domestic chargers had a plastic lid over the charge compartment, I dont see it on many new chargers today ,might have saved the mans life .

Li-po cells are potentially much more dangerous , and I have heard several stories and near misses with them ,shorting out in people pockets ,in the back of cars and in peoples houses ,Its not unlike some form of incendiary device when the go wrong ,they tend to burst into flames . Will be interesting to see the final outcome of the report into this accident , what a terrible misfortune for the man who was killed and his family though.

 

[dirtyhanfri]

I would bet it's one of those 18650 batteries used in vapers

 

[Tubetec]

I recharge lipo's all the time with a hobbyking charger , its very important to balance charge these cells ,that is use the mini plug to connect all the cells so the micro processor charge controler knows each cells voltage . I did have my dog steal a very small mini drone lipo on me one time ,I eventually found it in the garden ,she must have pierced it with her teeth before disguarding it ,all that was left was the wires and the connector ,the actual battery itself had almost completely vapourised ,just leaving behind what looked like oxidised layers of aluminium . I like the idea in the post from PRR about making a sand box for safe lipo charging . Single 18650's are grand as theres no chance for unbalance /overcharge happeneing also because of the metal shell physical damage is less likely to result in fire than with flat lipo packs as seen in Rc hobbying. Ive seen a thing lately where a couple of lipopacks are used as an emergency jump starter for engines ,the current discharge from Lipo's is really awesome, some can deliver hundreds of amps in  a short term burst .

 

[rock soderstrom]

I would bet it's one of those 18650 batteries used in vapers

The media now say that a charger with two batteries in it exploded and one of the batteries  thereby became a projectile. I don´t believe a Type AA batterie can do this. Those 18650 cells can be very nasty and the look pretty similar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08BoXebt_pk

I'm curious what comes out at the end of the investigations.

 

[boji]

A fully charged 18650 is a beast if it shorts.
I dropped one of those vape-type batteries and the ring shorted to the + nub.  Needless to say it started to smoke. Then it started to swirl around under its own power.  I kicked it outside and into the yard while it was still going, and it kept at it for a good minute. 

 

[weiss]

using rechargeables too..
but there must have gone something wrong, otherwise they would take them from the market if its so easy i guess.. ?

 

[cyrano]

I seem to remember another death from a small battery explosion, but I don't remember the details.

Accidents will happen. Healthy people have even died from drinking too much water in a short time. Maybe we should eliminate all dihydrogen-oxide?  :

 

[JohnRoberts]

I seem to remember another death from a small battery explosion, but I don't remember the details.

The more common fault with small batteries is starting fires and trashing the product they are in. There have been a few spectacular melt downs with automotive battery packs due to the massive energy stored inside, but they have so far managed to keep them relatively safe.

I had a non-rechargeable AA battery suffer a short circuit when a ground lead wire punctured a thin plastic wrap... (I changed brand of batteries after that). I discovered it pretty quickly before it did any damage, but it was getting hot.

Accidents will happen. Healthy people have even died from drinking too much water in a short time. Maybe we should eliminate all dihydrogen-oxide?  :

Hyponatremia is a hazard for athletes (typically runners), who drink too much water and disrupt the body's water management equilibrium.  Not very common but always possible if people ignore the "not thirsty" feedback our body typically gives us.  I have been in the later miles of running a marathon where I couldn't force myself to drink enough water, to not be thirsty again before the next water table a mere mile away. Apparently I have strong "not thirsty" signaling. 

JR

 

[cyrano]

This death was in a game, organised by a radio show, IIRC. The goal was to see who could drink the most water in two minutes. The prize was a 10.000$ check. She drank more than a gallon of water.

The victim was a young, healthy woman who hadn't been working out before...