E-Cigarettes Safe? Watch This Guy Get Victimized By Exploding One

An e-cigarette explodes violently in
this guy's jacket pocket, in an image from a security camera.

We've all heard of the new Samsung phones bursting into flames, but it turns out e-cigarettes are just as dangerous.

According to Slate, a French nightclub owner was badly hurt when his e-cigarettes blew up in his jacket pocket. Dramatic surveillance video of the incident is at the bottom of this post.  

Amine Britel was outside his nightclub last week in Toulouse, France

Says Slate:

"'All of a sudden I heard a loud band and a noise like a flare had gone off, only ten times louder. After the shock of the explosion, I realized that I had caught fire,' Britel said, according to Ubergizmo. 'I did not really understand what was happening to me. The pain only came afterwards.'"

Britel was hospitalized with severe burns and his fingers melted to his jacket. He plans to sue the Chinese manufacturer of the e-cigarette batteries.

E-cigarette batteries have caused all kinds of mayhem, it turns out.

According to Wired, a Colorado man broke his neck, lost some teeth and had burns and facial fractures when his e-cigarette blew up. Teenagers in California and Tennesee were badly injured by exploding vaping devices.

The e-cigarettes are powered by lithium-ion batteries, which are in many, many gadgets, including the laptop on which I'm writing this.

However, most computer and mobile phone manufacturers have exacting standards for batteries, notes Wired, but not all less sophisticated devices like vaping things are so carefully built.

Plus, some people are altering their e-cigarettes, which makes them more dangerous.

Smoking regular cigarettes is known to be very dangerous. Vaping is dangerous too, for some of the same reasons, and as it turns out, because a few explode. Explosions are dangerous, as the Frenh nightclub owner found out in the video, below.

Why You Shouldn't Get A Hoverboard, In Case You Didn't Know Already

Maybe getting that Hoverboard for Christmas wasn't
such a great idea. 

The big rage this past Christmas was to go out and buy Hoverboards.

It looked cool, floating along on those things, but humans being humans, and technology being technology, it didn't work out so well.

Hoverboards seem to catch fire, and those that don't seem to boost business at emergency rooms as people fall off them.

If you need proof and a good time waster, watch this video of disaster involving Hoverboards and other technological toys.

It'll make you want to become a Luddite.

Watch:

Helping Hands: People Made Burn Treatment Mittens For Koalas Injured In Australian Fires

A koala bear with burned paws receiving
treatment with one of the special mittens
voluteers made for them. Image from
the International Fund for Animal Welfare.  

One of the saddest consequences of wildfires that recently burned through parts of Australia is that the flames consumed some of the habitat occupied by koala bears.

Many of the bears died in the fires. Others suffered burns, especially as they clung to hot trees or tried to escape the fires by running across flaming grassland.

Officials retrieved many of the injured koalas and brought them to wildlife rescue centers where workers are treating the koala bears burned paws.

A special call went out, and people responded: Wildlife rescuers released an easy to follow pattern where people could use cotton sheets or tea towels to make special mittens for the koalas.

Veterinarians have to change the koala bear's dressings daily to treat the burns, and between the treatments, they put on those specialized mittens to protect the koalas' injured paws.

The step-by-step instructions were simple enough so that even the biggest klutz at the sewing machine could make them.

So many people responded to the call to make the mittens that a new alert had to go out: Stop, for now. We have enough mittens.

In a Facebook post labeled "Mitten Accomplished," the International Fund for Animal Welfare thanked everyone for their outpouring of support. Because of that, there's a more than adequate supply of koala mittens.

"Our amazing supporters were more than koalified for the job," the animal welfare group said.

Let's hope the surviving koalas have a smooth and full recovery. And no more bush fires, please.




 And our amazing supporters were more than koalified for the job.

Proof That Firefighters Have A VERY Tough Job

 

Sure, carrying a flaming propane tank out of a building
is perfectly safe. Really!  

Two videos show why firefighting can be a drag. And dangerous.

In China, a restaurant was badly damaged in a blaze.

Firefighters mostly had the fire out, but a propane tank in the building continued to spout flames, and seemed ready to explode.

No worries, firefighter Huanpu Jiangwu just carried the burning tank out of the restaurant, the flames inches from his head.

Never mind that it could have blown up any time.

Watch:




Next, we have a firefighter helping to put out a truck fire, somewhere. He's got his ladder against the truck, his hose running.

But things don't go so great. (It's fun, in a sick sort of way, to see how things deteriorate when he's out of view as traffic passes.)

Watch:

Drowning and Burning

The East Coast continues to drown this morning.

 Harrisburg, Pennsylvania had almost four months worth of rain in a day. More than 10,000 people are being kicked out of Binghamton, N.Y. ahead of what is predicted to be the worst flood in the city's history, beating a record set just five years ago.

Some of the worst flooding on record is happening in several other spots.

Luckily for Vermont, the worst of the latest round of rain missed the flood ravaged state. We just had minor flooding last night.

And we've seen Texas burn. Here's a video from the Texas Parks and Wildlife department showing how fast wildfires move. It's a scary video: