Charging Samsung Tablet Overheats, Burns Hole In Bed

An 11-year-old boy had a narrow escape after his charging Samsung tablet overheated and burnt a hole in his bed while he slept a few inches away from the device. The incident took place in Staffordshire, England, on Thursday morning.

Callum Hewkin woke up to find his room filled with smoke. He woke up his parents, Amy and Stewart Hewkin, who rushed to the room and noticed the tablet stuck to the bed. The device was minutes away from catching fire and had already burnt a hole in the bed. Firefighters arrived at the scene and told them the incident could have been fatal for the entire family.

Recalling the incident, the parents said their son sneaked into their room and took the four-year-old gadget after they went to bed. He then left it on charge for nine hours.

“The last thing anyone wants is to wake up and find their child seriously injured or dead because a tablet or phone has set fire in their room. We feel like we've had a lucky escape - Callum's life could have been at risk. We had no idea he even had his tablet in his room, he had snuck it into bed with him because he wanted to watch something in bed,” Stewart said.

“I went into Callum's room and there was a big burn mark right by where his head had been, and the room was full of white smoke. We have no idea how he didn't wake up but it goes to show how serious it could have been. I was gobsmacked, I never thought it would happen to us or that something like that even could happen - you don't expect an iPad or tablet to just start burning like that,” he said.

Stewart urged parents to ensure tablets or phones are not near the children when they sleep.

“We went to bed the next night and we didn't put our phones on charge or anything, we turned off all the plugs by the wall. We were terrified it could happen again. The plug and cable were still in perfect condition and it can't be our home's electrics because they didn't trip. How could this not be a faulty tablet, when the battery itself has basically exploded? It is quite terrifying,” he said.

Meanwhile, Samsung released a statement saying, “Product quality and customer safety are our top priorities at Samsung. We are currently reaching out to the customer to conduct a full investigation of this matter. Until Samsung is able to obtain and examine the device, it is impossible to determine what happened.”