Following Thursday’s report that a Samsung Galaxy Note7 caught fire on a plane, more stories have piled up suggesting the replacement Note7 being sold by Samsung and its carrier partners is not as safe as claimed.
A Farmington, Minn., teen claims her replacement Note7 burned her hand and melted its case on Oct. 7. “It felt like pins and needles except a lot more intense,” said Abby Zuis to KSTP. The Zuis family has receipts that detail the authenticity of the replacement handset.
Earlier last week, a Nicholasville, Ky., man was awoken in the middle of the night by smoke created by a burning Note7.
“The whole room just covered in smoke, smells awful. I look over and my phone is on fire,” said Michael Klering in a statement provided to WKYT. “The phone is supposed to be the replacement, so you would have thought it would be safe. It wasn’t plugged in. It wasn’t anything, it was just sitting there.”
Klering was sickened by the smoke and sought medical attention. He was diagnosed with acute bronchitis brought on by the poisonous fumes. Further, Klering claims Samsung erroneously sent him a text message that alarmed him.
Samsung said to him, “Just now got this. I can try and slow him down if we think it will matter, or we just let him do what he keeps threatening to do and see if he does it.”
Klering believes the message was intended for another Samsung employee. He is seeking legal help to determine what steps he might take next. Perhaps most troubling is that the Nicholasville event took place before the incident in which a replacement Note7 caught fire on a plane, prompting the plane to be evacuated and the flight to be cancelled.
In all three cases, Samsung said it is working with authorities to determine the cause of the fires. The original Note7 was recalled Sept. 2 due to potentially hazardous batteries. So far, the replacement devices haven’t fared much better.
