A cell phone explodes in Ogden

911 dispatcher has her own emergency with burning battery

A 911 dispatcher in Ogden needed a little help of her own Sunday when the cell phone in her jacket exploded.

Kris Munford had arrived at work a little after 6 a.m. and was about to start training a new employee.

Munford said she put on her dispatcher phone headset and began to smell smoke.

"We looked down and right by the edge of my jacket it was smoking," she said.

At first Munford thought her dispatch equipment was smoking. But after she took off her headset, she realized that it was coming from the pocket of her jacket, which she immediately took off.

"It was just billowing with smoke. Then I heard a loud pop, like a balloon," Munford said.

The cell phone battery became so hot it burned through the phone and through her jacket, dropping onto the floor. The rest of the phone "shot across the room," leaving pieces everywhere, Munford said.

Most of the pieces were "glowing red hot," she said. The hot phone burned several holes in her jacket, burned the chair she was sitting in and the carpet.

Another employee used either a towel or another jacket to pick up the pieces and take them outside until the fire department arrived.

"I think I was just in shock. I was so surprised," Munford said. "At first I wasn't sure what it was."

Smoke from the explosion left a small amount of haze in the dispatch room temporarily.

"It was pretty scary. There was a lot of smoke in here," said dispatcher supervisor Karen Disney.

Munford said it wasn't until the situation had calmed down and she was gathering up the pieces of her Motorola V-300 camera-phone that what had just happened really hit her.

"There was no indication whatsoever. The phone didn't get hot," she said. "It makes me really leery. It was really frightening."

Munford's son had a phone identical to his mother's until Sunday.

"I told my son, 'You're not using your phone today,' " she said.

Munford bought the phones through T-Mobile. She said the company was sending her two new phones, one for her and one for her son. As of Monday she said she had not contacted Motorola.

Although incidents of cell phone explosions are rare, they are not unknown.

In November, a report by MSNBC said that federal officials had received 83 cases of cell phones exploding or catching fire over the past two years. The most common cause of those fires was incompatible, faulty or counterfeit batteries or charges, according to MSNBC.

Last June, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and Verizon Wireless announced a recall of counterfeit cell phone batteries. And in January of 2004, Kyocera announced a recall of its cell phone batteries.

Munford, who had only had the phone a couple of months, used only the battery that came with the phone.

Munford admitted Monday she hadn't picked up a cell phone since the explosion. But she said the incident wouldn't deter her from owning a cell phone, although it will cause her to use extra caution.

For example, she said she'll no longer leave her phone unattended in the center console of her car.

"I know it's very rare, but now that I know it can happen I'm very leery," she said.

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E-mail: preavy@desnews.com

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