A fire that started in a California man’s pocket, putting him in the hospital with critical injuries, was at first blamed on the Nokia cell phone in his pocket. “Cell Phone Sets Man on Fire” read one headline, “Fire Official: Man’s Cell Phone Apparently Sets Him Ablaze” read another. Luis Picaso was sent to the hospital with burns over more than half of his body.
Yet even after both a Vallejo, California assistant fire chief and their fire investigator had declared publicly that the Nokia cell phone in the man’s pocket had “malfunctioned,” and that along with the man’s unfortunate choice of highly flammable clothing (made of nylon and polyester), had caused a fire that burned the man, a Nokia engineer sent to investigate has declared that the phone was not the cause of the fire.
No kidding? A Nokia employee – sent by Nokia to the scene to clear Nokia’s name – has said that the Nokia phone did not catch fire?
Go figure.
Nokia’s reasoning is that it couldn’t have been the cell phone that caused the fire because the Nokia 2125 in the man’s pocket was still able to function. Seems to me a great advertising campaign for Nokia – “Goes down in flames, comes up with signal”, but that doesn’t mean that the phone didn’t start the fire.
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Picaso’s attorney not only agrees with the conclusions of the Vallejo assistant fire chief and fire investigator, but adds another piece to the puzzle: “Picaso’s cell phone is the only logical culprit because Picaso doesn’t smoke,” said Picaso’s attorney.
This isn’t the first time that a Nokia cell phone has been accused of spontaneously catching fire and injuring someone. A few years ago a woman in Amsterdam received burns to her neck when her Nokia erupted in flames, and a few months later a woman in Finland suffered a similar fate with her Nokia phone. Earlier a 15 year old Belgian boy’s Nokia phone exploded in the middle of class, although fortunately in that incident nobody was hurt.
In each instance, Nokia, even while admitting that there might be a problem, took no responsibility, instead blaming third-party batteries.
I don’t know about you, but even if that is the case, I don’t want a cell phone that is knowingly manufactured to not be able to safely accomodate third-party after market batteries.
Unfortunately, the Vallejo fire department has recanted – after what sorts of pressure from Nokia we can only guess.
In any event, this should prove to be an interesting lawsuit, if only because it will force Nokia to be a bit less cavalier about the injuries alledgedly caused by their cell phones – third-party batteries or not.
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