
Teenage schoolgirl 'electrocuted after rolling on to iPhone cable in her sleep' - pmoriarty
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/teenage-schoolgirl-electrocuted-iphone-cable-sleep-died-le-thi-xoan-vietnam-apple-hanoi-a8056831.html
======
ajross
OK, even granting the crazy notion that the charger put line voltage (which
google tells me is 220V@50Hz in Vietnam) into the charger cable:

How do you electrocute yourself in bed with such a setup? That cable is going
to short through the electronics easily. The tiny conductors in the connectors
on both ends are going to melt and break. And even assuming you get unlucky
enough to have them fail closed so you have the phone case energized... where
is the ground in a bedroom situation to complete the circuit? Rolling onto a
phone case at 220V is going to hurt like hell, but it won't kill you unless
you can get a current across your heart.

I don't buy it.

~~~
klodolph
It only takes 100 or 200 mA to kill. This is probably not enough current to
melt or break any conductors, the chargers are typically designed to deliver
1,000 mA or more. Off-brand chargers are known electrocution hazards and this
is not the first case of injury, not even remotely.

Remember that heating follows P = I^2 R law, so it is entirely reasonable that
the conductors wouldn't melt before the attached person dies. Current across
the heart is not the only way to die from electricity, but it's not really
that hard to accidentally get current across the heart anyway. For example, if
your arm touches the energized phone case and your leg brushes against a metal
pipe in the house, that could easily complete a lethal circuit.

~~~
gruez
>It only takes 100 or 200 mA to kill

yes, but the actual amount of current that your organs are exposed to depends
on the the resistance and voltage. that's why you can't electrocute yourself
by putting your fingers on a 9v battery even though it's well over 200mA.

~~~
DanBC
> that's why you can't electrocute yourself by putting your fingers on a 9v
> battery even though it's well over 200mA.

If you break the skin a 9v battery can kill.

[http://www.darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin1999-50.html](http://www.darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin1999-50.html)

~~~
candiodari
Exactly. If you create a 9v voltage between an artery and a vein (though 0.1v
is plenty) and you generate more than around 160mA current (any battery and
static electricity can do that).

Essentially you'd have to get a conductor into an artery and one into a vein,
and if there is a millisecond where both are in there but not touching the
skin your heart will stop. It can be restarted for a minute or so afterwards,
but it won't restart on it's own.

Your skin has a "safe" (more or less) conductive layer to prevent this from
occurring, with another layer with enormous insulation below that. That's why
humans usually survive getting hit by lightning, yet succumb to such a stupid
tiny amount of current if it gets past the skin.

------
fhood
> The Independent has contacted Apple for comment but none had arrived at the
> time of publication.

Not sure why you would expect a comment from Apple when an off-brand chinese
(I assume) charger turned out to be unsafe.

~~~
Raphmedia
My charger that came with the Macbook Air 2011 is heavily frayed. I could see
it happening with genuine cables. Not my photo but mine is very similar:
[https://i.snag.gy/9xXhyf.jpg](https://i.snag.gy/9xXhyf.jpg)

~~~
wlesieutre
The difference is that those cables only carry low voltage DC. To get line
voltage AC on them you'd need a short inside the power brick bridging from one
side of the rectifier to the other.

Apple is very careful to isolate those two sides. Knockoff chargers, not so
much. See this teardown comparing a genuine Macbook charger with a counterfeit
version:

[http://www.righto.com/2016/03/counterfeit-macbook-charger-
te...](http://www.righto.com/2016/03/counterfeit-macbook-charger-
teardown.html)

 _High voltage and low voltage should be separated by a safety gap of at least
4mm (to simplify the UL 's creepage and clearance rules). On the circuit board
below, the high voltage input section is at the bottom and the low voltage
output section is at the top. On the right half of the board, the two sections
are separated by a large gap, which is good. On the left, there should be a
gap (bridged by the optoisolator). Unfortunately, traces and components pass
through this area making the gap dangerously small, under 1 mm. Any moisture
or loose solder could bridge this gap sending high voltage to the output._

~~~
dingaling
Any particular reason that the regs just require and air gap and not a solid
insulation barrier?

------
RcouF1uZ4gsC
What will be interesting is what happens if/when this happens in the US with
counterfeit parts sold by Amazon. Amazon through their comingling of inventory
is playing fast and loose with the safety of its customers. They have gotten
lucky so far, but eventually one of the counterfeit chargers/cables they sell
is going to cause issues.

~~~
ProAm
Nothing will happen. They will say sorry and provide you a credit and tell you
not to use the device...like they do now.

~~~
dragonwriter
I'm sure there is at least one product liabilty attorney ready to illustrate
chain of commerce liability for defective products sold to consumers with a
big fat wrongful death award at stake.

And even if there wasn't, the bigger deal is that someone actually getting
killed would bring more media attention to both Amazon's counterfeit goods
problem and the deliberate choices Amazon makes that enable that problem.

~~~
ProAm
I would like this think so, but am too cynical and pessimistic when it comes
to business. The avg cost of a human life is ~7.5 million [1] (old stat, may
be different), that is a minor accounting issue for Amazon if they were
actually sued and lost for this.

[1] [https://www.theglobalist.com/the-cost-of-a-human-life-
statis...](https://www.theglobalist.com/the-cost-of-a-human-life-
statistically-speaking/)

~~~
dragonwriter
That's actually why I said the bigger issue than the liability one is the PR
one.

~~~
ProAm
I think Amazon is too big and too global for a couple deaths to really affect
them at this point.

------
snarfy
EEVBlog has a good tear down of the cheap chargers vs brand name chargers -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wi-b9k-0KfE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wi-b9k-0KfE)

------
matt_wulfeck
> _Police said a "broken-down" charging brick and frayed cable were also found
> in the 14-year-old's bed. It is not thought those devices were made by
> Apple._

As much as I don’t like apples certify program for cables and chargers, this
is exactly the reason we need it to exist.

~~~
dragonwriter
No, its the reason we need brand-independent safety certification of
electrical gear, of the style provided by, e.g., UL.

Its also why we need actors in the chain of commerce to have strong protection
against counterfeits, which negate the protection of any safety certification
program.

------
jakereps
> ... rolling onto iPhone cable ...

> Police said a "broken-down" charging brick and frayed cable were also found
> in the 14-year-old's bed. It is not thought those devices were made by
> Apple.

So, teenager gets electrocuted by frayed off-brand cable. How is this news?

~~~
koenigdavidmj
The cable shouldn't be carrying mains voltage at all. It's USB; isn't that low
enough current to be mostly harmless?

~~~
SAI_Peregrinus
The cable probably was carrying mains voltage. Most of the cheap third-party
chargers have very poor clearances inside, and tend to skimp on protection.
It's not that rare for them to end up with a 5V DC atop a 120/240V AC mains.
The phone will often still charge just fine, but the cable is dangerous.

Also, depending on the resistance as little as 10mA can be dangerous. That
would mostly be wet or abraded skin, 100mA is a more general value for
dangerous currents. But USB can charge at 500mA to 4A or so, depending on the
version. It's only the low voltage and high resistance of skin that limits the
current.

------
rabboRubble
I still have my iPhone 3GS and the original cable supplied with it. This cable
is pristine, pure white, no fraying of the exterior coating, completely safe
to use. If you did not see the cable ends, you would think I purchased in the
last year. Number of replacement cables purchased equals ZERO.

I replaced the 3GS with an iPhone 5. This phone's Lightening cable was visibly
frayed within 6 months. Within a year, the interior wires' insulation cracked.
I replaced the 5 cable with another cable. And another. Then stopped buying
Apple cables because they are shit. I don't even want the cable provided with
a new phone. Apple should offer phones without any cable and drop the price
accordingly, exiting a market they clearly can't handle.

The 3GS cable and the 5 cable were used in exactly the same fashion by the
same persion. The 3GS cable is still going strong after, gosh, 10 years?

I started to worry about Apple's commitment to manufacturing quality years ago
because of what I saw with their cabling. This concern hasn't been allayed
with the keyboard issues on their MBP line. I'd like to buy a new MBP (mine
finally died after an 8 year run) but I am not going to until I see evidence
that Apple irons out their quality issues. I just can't justify the cost
premium when there are obvious problems.

Edit: somehow entire missing grammatically horrible!

------
jimrandomh
> "Police said a "broken-down" charging brick and frayed cable were also found
> in the 14-year-old's bed. It is not thought those devices were made by
> Apple."

Moral of the story: Don't use a charger or power cable if it's visibly
damaged. Physically damaged power electronics can put electricity in places it
doesn't belong, creating a risk of fire or electric shock.

~~~
wmeredith
It's not even an iPhone cable. It's a random company cable. This is obnoxious
clickbait.

------
snausages
Something similar happened in Ireland earlier in the year:
[https://www.irishtimes.com/business/technology/warning-
issue...](https://www.irishtimes.com/business/technology/warning-issued-over-
electrical-items-after-fatal-fire-1.3070243)

> It is believed the fire started as a result of an electrical fault involving
> a mobile phone charger in the bedroom where Ms McDermott was sleeping.

------
ellyagg
A kid got electrocuted trying to charge his phone at a cybercafe in China.
There was a good discussion about what circumstances would be necessary for
this to happen:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/watchpeopledie/comments/7aywfl/teen...](https://www.reddit.com/r/watchpeopledie/comments/7aywfl/teen_charging_his_phone_at_a_cybercafe_is/)

------
scotty79
Recently my original macbook charger died with a bang and tripped 20A breakers
(220v). It was in perfect condition before that. Maybe 5 years of use but
rarely ever away from my desk.

First time any charger I owned did such a thing and I had many very shady
chargers for various pc laptops, phones and batteries.

Replcement charger in local store, 100$. I wasn't happy.

------
Omnius
WOW what the hell is wrong with that site it's cancer. Then i remember i am
trying out the new firefox and don't have an ad blocker installed.

Scrolling videos, entire half screen ads between or in the middle of
paragraphs of text.

Is this the internet norm now and ad block has just been hiding it from me?

------
tempVariable
That is bonkers. Even with turbochargers, a USB outlet of a charger should not
put out more than 5V. I tested about 10 different chargers with a multimeter
in the last two weeks and each one was anywhere from 4.9V to 5.1V. The
isolation in the brick must have been total junk

------
centizen
Yikes, how would this be possible? Short in the charger that caused AC to be
put on to the cable is the only thing I can think of.

~~~
codedokode
If the charger has no transformer (and no galvanic isolation) then you can get
electric shock by touching output contacts (or metal parts of a phone) and any
grounded piece of metal, for example a water pipe.

By the way, would not it be better to have lower AC voltage? For example, 75V
or 60V don't look as dangerous as 230V.

~~~
kec
lower voltage means more transmission losses as well as heavier/more expensive
cabling to deliver the same power.

------
chx
Would a GFCI be protection enough against something like this?

~~~
klodolph
Probably, but it's possible for this to happen without a ground fault.

~~~
gruez
it would need to be a pretty contrived situation where the cable is frayed in
two separate places, the cable is frayed in such a way that the path of least
resistance is through your body (and not through the other conductor in the
cable), your body is in contact with those two places at the same time, and
the contact points allow the current to go through some vital organs.

