Teen Almost Dead After Phone Charger Accident Leaves His Neck Scarred With 4th Degree Burns

A teenager from Oklahoma was electrocuted and nearly killed by his phone charger. Sixteen-year-old Rayce Ogdahl was lying in bed wearing his cross necklace when it grazed an exposed prong of a plug. The metal chain seared in his neck and caused second, third and fourth-degree burns. His mother, Danielle Davis, 38, is trying to spread awareness about phone charger safety.

“He could’ve easily died that night”

Davis woke up on the night of April 30 to the sound of her son screaming. He called for her and the mom of six ran to his bedroom to find burns on his neck and shoulders. The chains of his necklace burned into his skin. 

“We thought maybe he’s playing a video game and getting frustrated,” Davis said. “Then I heard him shout ‘Mom’ and my son was standing in the hallway. He said ‘I’ve been electrocuted. It was my necklace.’ There were scorch necks around his neck. And the smell was awful. The whole house smelled like burnt hair and skins and electrical burns. We started calling 911 for an ambulance.”

Ogdahl had ripped the chain off of his neck when he got out of bed. Not only had the necklace burned his flesh, it and the cross pendant had seared a hole three inches deep into his mattress. The teenager was rushed to the intensive care unit at Integris Baptist Medical Center in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The doctors told his family that he had  been subject to “enough amps to kill him.”

Davis expressed gratitude that her son survived the freak accident. “He could’ve easily died that night. It was amazing he was still conscious and could still alert us. It would’ve been a different story…”

Read More: Phone Explodes Killing Teen As She Sleeps

“He visibly saw sparks coming from his neck…”

Ogdahl had been in bed when he heard something slide off of his mattress. He wanted to ensure his phone stayed plugged into its charger so his alarm would wake him up for school in the morning. “He said he leaned out of the bed and when he did the cross necklace around his neck made contact with the prongs from the plug in an extension cord which were just barely exposed,” explained Davis.

To make matters worse, the teenager was “completely conscious through the whole thing and was aware he was being electrocuted. Because everything was metal, it made a complete circuit around his neck. It was like a hot coil. And he has burns on his hands from trying to rip his chain around his neck. It was a thick, heavy chain. The crazy thing was during the electrocution, it welded part of his chain to the charger. And the cross pendant on the chain melted three inches into the mattress through the sheets of his bed.

“He said this all happened within a matter of seconds and he visibly saw sparks coming from his neck. He told me his whole body hurt and he thought he was going to die.“

The teenager will have his scars for life. “They’re speaking about doing a skin graft,” said his mother, “but Rayce doesn’t want that unless it’s medically necessary. It’s almost his entire neck that’s covered in scars. It’s from his chin to his collarbone.”

Read More: Why You Should Stop Charging Your Phone in Your Car

Phone Charger Safety

That night has made her and her family more aware of the safety hazard of electrical wires and plugs. The moment of electrocution was so unlikely yet it had happened. 

“When it comes to your phone, there’s not a text message or notification that is important enough to have your phone on your bed,” she said. “Anything can happen and Rayce is proof of that. “Pay attention to your cords and I would recommend to anybody don’t use extension cords at all.”

Here are some important safety tips regarding phone chargers:

• Buy phone chargers from reputable brands and avoid cheap knockoffs. 
• Get rid of chargers with frayed cables, wiggly plug pins, and broken connectors
• Avoid handling chargers with wet hands .
• Make sure phones and chargers are not covered by books, blankets, etc. when they are plugged in.
• Unplug the charger when the phone is at full power. 
• Avoid power banks with quick charge options unless they are from a reliable company. Rapid charging can cause battery damage and shorten the phone’s lifespan.
• Don’t keep chargers in areas that get very hot, such as near a radiator or in direct sunlight.
• Don’t keep phones plugged in for prolonged periods of time because they can heat up and become a fire hazard.
• Charge phones on flat surfaces where they can air out, not on beds or couches.
  

Read More: A 16-Year-Old Died After Being Electrocuted By His Headphones