'Similar to blast injury,' teen suffers injuries after vaping pen explodes

[mahatmakanejeeves]

It's not the first one of these:

This is what happens when an e-cigarette malfunctions...

'Similar to blast injury,' teen suffers injuries after vaping pen explodes
By Mike Anderson, KSL TV | Posted - Jun 20th, 2019 @ 10:04pm

SALT LAKE CITY — An emergency surgery that Dr. Katie Russell performed back in March 2018 was unlike any other she had encountered before, mainly because of the cause: a vaping pen. ... “It blew out multiple teeth immediately, and then he got a jaw fracture,” Russell explained. “And then there was about a 2 1/2 centimeter chunk that was missing, had gotten blown out, so it was a pretty substantial force.”

The case was unusual enough that Russell, who is a pediatric surgeon at the University of Utah Health and Primary Children’s Medical Center, recently had her experience published in The New England Medical Journal. ... “At that point, I had no idea that vape pens could even do this,” Russell said. “We just want to educate people and let them know that there is a possibility that these things explode and cause major damage.”

Kailani Burton admits she allowed her son, Austin to have vape pen as a way to try and get him to stop smoking. It’s a decision she deeply regrets now. She says there were no signs there was anything wrong with the device. ... “We heard a loud pop,” Burton recalled, explaining that her older son came running into the room. “And he said, 'it blew up! It blew up!’ And I said, 'what blew up?'”

Burton said her then 17-year-old son was holding his mouth and groaning, unable to speak. She drove him to a nearby medical center, which then referred them to Primary Children’s Hospital. ... Russell said over the past year and a half, Austin has had multiple reconstructive surgeries. He initially had his jaw wired shut, had a plate put in to stabilize the jaw, and had several teeth secured into place. He will still need at least one more procedure to replace teeth that were destroyed in the accident.
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[hunter]

1. Lithium batteries, as used in vape pens or laptop computers, are nothing to mess with.

Short-circuits or near-short-circuits may cause them to explode or catch fire.

So will improper charging circuitry.

Modifying pens to make more vapor is dangerous. Some negligently designed and manufactured vape pens and lithium batteries are dangerous new, right out of the box.