The man pictured above, 23-year-old James Lauria, was only trying to do the right thing: quitting smoking. He was using e-cigarettes as a way to wean him off and never ran into a problem — until one of them exploded in his face, according to Fox 5 DC. It sounds like hyperbole, but that’s exactly what happened, and it caused major damage and left him hospitalized in intensive care for a week:
“He had burns to his hand and a fractured neck and finger, and burns to his cornea,” said [his father] Ed Lauria. “It blew a hole through his pallet and at the same time, flames went down and he got first-degree burns on his chest and up on his face. It forced his front tooth up into his gum – out of sight – and chipped the other one and damaged a few other lower teeth.”
Lauria is being fitted for a prosthetic for the roof of his mouth and has not been able to eat solid food since the incident, which happened July 29 during a break from work. He is also still wearing a neck brace and his speech has been affected. But he is still thankful that it wasn’t any worse. That’s an amazing display of optimism.
As for the safety of other e-cigarettes, it looks like this could have been a fluke, a freak accident, and e-cigarettes are safe, for the most part. Or just try the gum.
(via FOX 5 News)