Mall Video Captures Shocking Footage of E-Cigarette Explosion

A mall surveillance video captured shocking footage of an e-cigarette exploding in a cloud of black smoke inside a woman’s bag. According to a Pix11 news report, Mara McInerney was checking out of a sunglass store at the Freehold Raceway Mall in New Jersey when a huge, black cloud of smoke erupted from her $1,200 Louis Vitton bag. She escaped injury, but the experience, obviously left her rattled.

McInerney said the first thing she heard was a bang, an explosion. The next thing she knew, she saw smoke billowing from her purse and into her face. Soon after that, her bag was in flames. McInerney believes things could have been a lot worse had she been carrying the bag or if it had happened in her car where she keeps it on the back seat next to her daughter.

Dangerous Devices

It is indeed fortunate that no one was injured in this e-cigarette explosion. Many others haven’t been that lucky. There have been scores of fires and explosions involving e-cigarettes and vaping pens that have left people with serious burn injuries. The culprit in these cases is the lithium-ion batteries, which interestingly enough, power 95 percent of all electronic mobile devices.

However, the batteries in many brands of e-cigarettes are cheaply manufactured using substandard parts that they pose a much more significant danger of exploding or igniting. We’ve heard of incidents where people have been burned all over their bodies as e-cigarettes exploded in their pockets. These devices have acted like projectiles when they were left on a table and self-ignited. One Florida man suffered injuries so severe that he went into a coma after an e-cigarette exploded in his face as he was smoking it. The device burned a hole through another man’s tongue as the device exploded while in use.

Call for Safety and Quality Control

We’re also hearing more information about how e-cigarettes are also unhealthy contrary to aggressive marketing by the companies that sell them, pitching these products as healthier alternatives to traditional tobacco cigarettes. Recent research has shown that e-cigarettes can do serious damage to the lungs and that the flavored juices that go into these devices contain dangerous, cancer-causing chemicals.

The public should be made more aware of the danger of smoking e-cigarettes. There is also an urgent need for regulating the quality of these products including accessories such as the batteries, which are mass-produced by Chinese companies. Our California product defect attorneys are currently representing victims of e-cigarette explosions. We know they type of serious injuries these devices can cause. It needs to stop.