A Filipino mother-of-two was killed while talking on a phone that was plugged into a faulty charger. The incident has been called a “wake-up call” by authorities who warned against the use of knock-offs as they pose a serious risk of electrocution.
Sheryl Aldeguer, 28, who had come to North Gosford, Australia to
work as a nurse, was found dead in her apartment on April 23.
Authorities have now established that she was electrocuted while
speaking on a mobile phone which she had been charging. They
believe charger was a faulty knock-off which released a sudden,
high-voltage, electrical burst.
“The voltage seems to travel up through the faulty charger
into her phone and she was wearing earplugs and also operating a
laptop which was also plugged into a power point,” said Fair
Trading representative from New South Wales Lynelle Collins to
the Sydney Morning Herald.
The electricity then went down through the earplugs into the
laptop and into the power point.
“Two-hundred-and-forty volts [then] traveled up into the
phone, which obviously the phone isn’t designed to handle,”
added Collins.
Aldeguer’s body was found by her friends a day after the
incident. She had sustained burns to her chest and ears and it is
thought that she died instantly.
Friends of Alderguer believe that the victim procured the charger
from a mobile accessories outlet in Sydney. Australian
authorities have raided the organization and seized all of the
non-standard chargers that were on sale. They have also issued a
warning to Australian consumers to steer clear of the faulty
products because of the serious risk of fire and electrocution.
Fair Trading Commissioner Rod Stowe has urged all consumers to
discard any non-standardized chargers and bend the prongs as a
precautionary measure, so they cannot be used again.
“It's a wake-up call to people who buy cheap electronic products
without realizing potential hazards,” said Stowe. “If
the deal's too good to be true, it usually is and it can prove
fatal.”
He also advised people to avoid using mobile phones while they
are charging because of the increased risk of electric shocks.
“It's not a good idea to actually use it while it's
charging,” Stowe said. “We're probably all guilty from
time to time [but] our experts advise that it's not a thing we
should be doing.”
The crucial difference between standardized chargers and their
cheaper knock-offs is the lack of insulation. Genuine products
usually contain a number of layers of protection, while faulty
ones will usually only have the bare minimum.
Last year a Chinese airhostess died of electrocution while
talking on her iPhone while it was plugged in. A subsequent
investigation into the incident revealed the charger she was
using may have been a cheap knock-off that caused a sudden surge
of electricity to overload the phone’s battery.