US man suffers burns from being nearly electrocuted by phone on charge

Washington: A 32-year-old man in the US was nearly electrocuted and left with serious burn injuries after he slept with his phone charging on his bed.

Wiley Day, from Huntsville, Alabama, fell asleep with his iPhone not far away as, like so many others, he had grown used to keeping his phone with him in bed, as it charged overnight.

The next morning, Day woke up and rolled over and as he did so, a dog-tag necklace that he was wearing happened to catch on the exposed prongs of the charger head, which had come loose from the extension cord.

The metal chain suddenly became a conductor for the electricity -- and it travelled straight to Day's neck. The jolt he felt was "the eeriest, darkest, most demonic thing you could ever experience," Day told The Washington Post.

Day said he was thrown from his bed to the ground and in a matter of moments, he stopped feeling anything. "Your body is numb at that point. I guess people would think it would be burning, but in my case I felt a whole lot of pressure around my neck," he said.

Day's eyesight started to fade, and he felt as if he were trying to see out of a peephole, with everything rendered in black and gray. He became acutely aware of his heartbeat, which thundered in his ear.

Day remembered shouting for his relatives, who slept on the other side of the home, until his adult niece came running into the room. Somehow, he said, he managed to yank the necklace and pull it off.

"She said I kept yelling 'Jesus!'. When I came to and figured out what happened, I literally stood straight up, and I said, 'Oh my God, I think I just got electrocuted,?" Day said.

He soon realised what had happened. There was smoke coming out of the extension cord. Day's shirt was singed, with a small hole burned out. There were strips of skin and flesh missing where the metal chain had scorched his neck. And the pattern of the necklace was burned into parts of his hands where he had gripped the chain to try to tear it off.

"Had I not pulled that necklace off when I did...I just believe that God spared my life, and that's what happened," Day said.

He rushed to see his doctor, who admitted him into a hospital immediately. Doctors determined that Day had suffered second and third-degree burns to his hands and neck from the freak incident that took place on March 22.

Benjamin Fail, a Huntsville physician, told WAAY News that 100 volts of electricity can kill a person. He estimated that Day had been hit with about 110 volts. "He is lucky to be alive," Fail told the TV station.