Like many iPhone users, Wiley Day fell into the habit of sometimes falling asleep with his charging smartphone next to him in the bed. That routine nearly cost him his life on March 22, when his dog tag necklace reportedly slipped between his charger and an extension cord, making contact with the exposed prongs and sending roughly 110 volts of electricity through his body.
Day’s chain essentially became a small conductor for the electric current traveling between the extension cord and the phone and nearly killed him.
“[My neice] said I kept yelling ‘Jesus!’” Day told The Washington Post, after the shock threw him from his bed to the floor and knocked him unconscious. “When I came to and figured out what happened, I literally stood straight up, and I said, ‘Oh my God, I think I just got electrocuted.’”
Day awoke to smoke emitting from his extension cord, with a numbing sensation throughout his body and burn marks on his neck and hands. His shirt was burned in areas, and his hands also bore burn marks from when he tried to rip off the electro-charged chain that nearly killed him. Day was treated for second- and third-degree burns at Huntsville Hospital.
While doctors expect Day to make a full recovery, he was required to wear bandages on his hands from his burns.
“Charge your phone away from you,” Day warned, while speaking with Huntsville, Alabama ABC affiliate WAAY 31. “Charge it the next day. It’s not worth your life.”
