Malaysia: Woman dies from electrocution while talking on plugged-in smartphone

A woman in Malaysia has died from being electrocuted while having a conversation on a mobile phone that was plugged into a wall socket.

Suhana Mohamad, 30, a mother of two from Cheras, a suburb in Kuala Lumpur, was talking on her smartphone at 11.30pm on Friday 15 April when she experienced an electrical shock from the charging phone, according to Malaysian news site Kosmo.

Her husband, policeman Raja Raja Asri Mat, 29, was sleeping at the time, but he woke up and rushed her to the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia Medical Center, but sadly she was pronounced dead on arrival.

Tragically, the woman passed away on her birthday, and there are no details about what sort of smartphone she was using, what type of charger was being used or how her husband was alerted to her attention, but the incident has stunned the nation as it is the first time that anyone in the country has ever been killed from using a charging smartphone.

Although smartphone batteries have been known to explode from time to time and cause burn accidents, it is extremely rare for a smartphone to be directly linked to a person's death.

In July 2013, Ma Ailun, 23, a China Southern Airlines flight attendant in north-west China, picked up her iPhone 5 to answer a call while it was plugged in and charging when she was electrocuted and killed. According to Xinhua News Agency, the iPhone was purchased from an official Apple Store, and the smartphone was being charged using an original Apple charger.

The incident made waves in China and Apple pledged to investigate the issue, and in August, the technology giant launched a worldwide programme whereby users were offered discounts if they traded in third party chargers and bought original Apple chargers instead.

A few months later in November 2013, a 28-year-old Thai man died after he fell asleep while holding onto an iPhone 4S that was being charged using a third-party charger. Looking at the burn marks found on his chest and his hand, it is believed that he fell asleep on top of the phone and was electrocuted in his sleep.

There was also an incident in 2010 where a man in north-east China was killed by an electric shock while making a phone call from a smartphone that was being charged using an unauthorised charger, and in February 2015, a woman in Russia died after her iPhone, which was plugged into its charger, dropped into the bathtub.