It Finally Happened - An Electronic Cigarette Accident

The Medical Daily reports an incident of a Florida man using a modified electronic cigarette (there is evidence that he modified the battery) who lost some of his teeth and parts of his tongue is when an electronic cigarette exploded in his mouth.  He is recovering in the hospital, fire officials said on Wednesday.  More here:  http://www.medicaldaily.com/news/20120216/9129/e-cig-electronic-cig...

It is worth noting that:  

• ballpoint pens kill on average one hundred people a year
• mobile phones kill 6000 drivers a year in the US alone (texting while driving)
• beds kill 450 people a year (when people fall out of them)
• vending machines kill 13 people a year

While no risk can be eliminated absolutely, whether with ball point pens, beds or with e-cigarettes, the following tips can help ensure your safety.

1. Keep batteries away from extreme heat.
2. Use batteries from retailers certified by ECITA. Batteries from these retailers have ROHS and CE approval, and cut off mechanisms designed to keep them from overheating.
3. ALWAYS use the battery with the charger supplied. This is the biggest risk, IMO, as it’s possible to have different e-cigarettes and get chargers mixed up.
4. Unless you know what you are doing, don’t modify e-cigarettes, and don’t mess around with the batteries.
5. If you’re still worried, use a regular e-cigarette – according to an engineer I spoke to, if things went badly wrong with them, they don’t have enough power to do much more than go POP.

Finally…

While the incident is alarming, it’s worth remembering that smoking kills around one in three smokers. (Eventually).

In contrast, one e-cig user out of over 2.5 million (in the US alone) has suffered a non-fatal injury using an electric cigarette in the most dangerous way possible.

It’s terrible (and we hope he gets better!) – but which would you prefer:  A 33% chance of death versus a one in a million chance of injury?