13-year-old boy electrocuted to death while playing games on his charging phone in a fast food restaurant
A 13-year-old was electrocuted to death while playing games on his smartphone which was plugged in for charging at a fast-food restaurant in China last Friday.
The boy, identified only by his nickname, Liu, was dining with a classmate at an unnamed fried chicken restaurant in Nanchang, the provincial capital of Jiangxi, when the incident took place. The teenager had plugged in his Huawei smartphone into a power socket inside the eatery using a third-party cable and was playing games on his device while it continued to charge, Daily Mail reported.
In CCTV footage of the incident obtained by local media, the 13-year-old boy, seen wearing a green t-shirt, was holding his smartphone as he sat with his classmate at a booth in the joint.
As soon as the victim received an electric shock from the smartphone, his entire body tensed up and went rigid. In the next moment, he was seen going limp. Seeing the victim slumping over in his chair, his friend rushed over to the other side to see if the teen was alright.
Liu's friends and other spectators helped transport him to a nearby hospital where the doctors tried to revive him in vain for two hours. He was declared dead soon after.
The doctors who treated the teenager told his sister that he had died of an electric shock. They also added that the victim suffered burn marks on his face and body.
Liu's sister told local media that she had called for an investigation into her brother's death as she blamed the restaurant's faulty socket for the death.
She said that although the cable used for charging his phone did not originally come with the device and was a third party equipment bought at a nearby store, it worked fine after the incident.
The incident also did not damage the victim's phone, which worked normally after Liu's death.
The restaurant outlet where the incident took place, was closed by the authorities for a couple of days following the boy's death. It did reopen after two days.
According to reports, the restaurant owner taped up the power socket which was blamed for the incident.
The case is currently being investigated.