iPhone charger causes 2nd degree burns around 19-year-old's neck when it touched her necklace while she was sleeping

A 19-year-old woman got an electric shock from her generic iPhone charger so severe that she had to be rushed to the hospital with second-degree burns.

The case was reported in the Annals of Emergency Medicine journal where experts termed the condition an "electrical injury." The unnamed woman was said to be sleeping on a bed with the end of the charger under her pillow when she experienced an intense "burning sensation" and "severe pain" around her neck. 

The other end of the charger was still plugged into the socket and the switch was on, although her phone was not charging at the time. Pediatrician Dr. Carissa Bunke, who led the team of physicians who treated the woman, concluded that "an electric current from her charger touched her necklace (that she was wearing when he went to sleep) and transmitted the current into it." 

The woman was diagnosed with a "circumferential partial-thickness burn" after being rushed to the University of Michigan's C.S. Mott Children's Hospital. She underwent an angiogram - a type of X-ray that examines blood vessels - after which it was determined that she had not suffered any fractures or other kinds of injuries to her soft tissue or blood vessels. 

Warning: The following image may be disturbing for some viewers: 

Doctors said that the pain that she felt resulted from the fact that she "panicked" and pulled on the necklace, breaking it. The only injury she suffered was a straight, second-degree burn that went nearly all the way around her neck. After burn-specialists removed the fragments of her necklace still sticking to her skin, the patient was given some morphine for her pain and sent home, Daily Mail reported. 

Bunke noted in the study that Electric current injuries' are becoming increasingly common as children and teenagers nowadays habitually charge their phones at night without any second thoughts to their own safety while doing it.

"Generic phone chargers can cause burns or electrocutions," he said. "Even with a low-voltage device, if the current is high, then the electric shock can be severe." 

He had a piece of important advice for such adolescent individuals. "Teens and adolescents are particularly at risk of injury due to their frequent mobile device use," he said. "They should be advised to not sleep with their phones or mobile devices charging in bed and avoid leaving the charger plugged in when it is not connected to a phone."