The AP reports a 24-year-old Fort Worth, Texas, man died on January 29, two days after a vaporizer pen he was using at a vape shop in Keller exploded, severing his left carotid artery and peppering his skull with shrapnel, according to the Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office.
Also reporting are KXAS-TV Dallas on its website and in a TV newscast, the Dallas Morning News, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Continuing coverage: Texas man died after vape pen explosion.
CNN reports, in continuing coverage, on the death of 24-year-old William Brown, which occurred two days after his vape pen exploded during use in his car outside the Smoke and Vape DZ in Fort Worth, Texas on January 27. According to the death certificate, Brown “died from cerebral infarction and herniation after debris from the exploding vape pen dissected his left carotid artery.” CNN reports “Brown had gone into the shop to ask for help using his vape pen, but did not buy anything, according to KTVT. The shop said they don’t sell that brand of vape pen.” He was taken by ambulance to a Fort Worth hospital where he died after being put in a medically-induced coma. Family members told KTVT that part of the e-cigarette became “lodged in his throat.”
USA Today cites KTVT-TV Dallas, which reports “the Smoke and Vape DZ shop said Brown wanted help using a Mechanical Mod style vape pen.” Gizmodo says Brown “reportedly was trying the vape for the first time in a car when it exploded and severed his left carotid artery, one of four major vessels that supply blood to the brain.”
NBC Nightly News broadcast that Brown’s death is “the second in the U.S. blamed on e-cigs. While fatal incidents are rare, explosions are not. In two years, US hospitals reported 2,035 injuries from vaping. The problems center around lithium-ion devices that power the devices, which the FDA says can overheat, especially if the wrong charger is used.” ABC World News Tonight broadcast, “Investigators believe the e-cig’s battery may be to blame.” The CBS Evening News broadcast commentary by Carnegie Mellon University engineering professor Jay Whitaker, who said vaping devices “produced by better, well-known brands, probably use higher quality batteries, and these higher quality batteries probably have a lower frequency of danger.” The American Vaping Association “said people who use Juul and other devices with an internal battery do not have to worry about accidents like this one.”
Fox News reports Alice Brown, the victim’s grandmother, said William was “a really bad asthmatic” and a friend recommended the device as “something that could help you breathe good.” She said William “popped the top” off the device before the incident. She “told the Star-Telegram that she was working with an investigator and had recovered a piece” of the device “to aid with the case.” CBS News reports “Brown’s grandmother said she’s not interested in suing because it won’t bring him back.”
From the news release of the American Association for Justice.
