A woman from Long Island charged in a lawsuit with Samsung after the company’s highly expected and supposedly fireproof Galaxy Note 9 model apparently spontaneously combusted inside her purse.
Having the opportunity of being the first case of a Galaxy Note 9 phone catching fire, the situation of real estate agent Diane Chung contains a legal claim which makes us remember the 2016 disaster for the South Korean tech giant, when various Galaxy Note 7 phones ignited and because it happened quite frequently, Samsung had to dump 2.5 million phones.
Selling for roughly $1000, the Galaxy Note 9 definitely wasn’t supposed to have this problem, according to Samsung’s very own experts who made a statement ahead of the 24th of August release. The CEO D. J. Koh stated, according to reports, that “the battery in the Galaxy Note 9 is safer than ever. Users do not have to worry about the batteries anymore”.
Kate Beaumont, the director of product planning, so another Samsung executive, said that the phone benefits from a battery safety check that is performed in multiple steps which should guarantee that the Note 9 will definitely not catch fire. However, Mrs. Chung was in an elevator after midnight, on the 3rd of September, in a Bayside building when her phone started to get really hot.
She didn’t use it anymore; instead she placed it in her bag. All of a sudden, she observed thick smoke as she heard a screeching and whistling sound coming from her purse. Then, she placed her bag on the elevator floor, while trying to empty it. Apparently, she burned her fingers as she grabbed the smoking Samsung and became extremely panicked while trapped in the elevator.
Eventually, she got out and a good Samaritan helped her by stopping the burning Samsung while grabbing it with a cloth and throwing it in a bucket of water.
Henry Lares is still early into his career as tech reporter but has already had his work published in many major publications including Tech Crunch and the Huffington Post. In regards to academics, Henry earned an engineering degree from Apex Technical School. Henry has a passion for emerging technology and covers upcoming products and breakthroughs in science and tech.