Earlier this week, news began circulating that a young woman was killed when she was electrocuted by her iPhone. Police and Apple are still investigating the incident, but many believe that the deadly shock was due to a problem with the phone’s charger. Now another iPhone electrocution incident has occurred in China.
Want China Times is reporting that Wu Jiantong was charging his phone on July 8 when his sister, Wu Jianxing, heard him exclaim that he was being electrocuted. She found him on the floor convulsing with the plugged in iPhone next to him. She unplugged the device, but reports feeling a slight shock herself from the charger.
Unlike the previous case of Ma Ailun, Jiantong didn’t die from the shock. He is, however, in a coma, and has been in one for 10 days. There’s no word on his current condition beyond that.
After two of these incidents happening so close together, people are obviously wondering what the hell is going on here. It seems that both victims were using unofficial chargers not made by Apple. These chargers reportedly have a small uninsulated metal part that could deliver a deadly shock if touched.
There’s another theory going around as well regarding the unofficial chargers. An engineer said that Apple’s official chargers drop the voltage from 220 volts to 5 volts when charging a phone. These unofficial chargers may be delivering the full 220 volts to the phone, and therefore could deliver a deadly shock to the person using it.
Obviously, this is nothing but speculation for now. We won’t know what really happened for sure until the police and Apple finish up their investigation into the matter.