A teenager was taken to hospital Monday night after suffering burn injuries when a nicotine vaporizer exploded inside the car he was riding in.
Sean McGrath says he was driving the car, in the Activa Avenue area of the city, when his friend first grabbed the vaporizer.
“He went to use it, and it exploded in his hand,” McGrath told CTV News.
“When it exploded, it rocketed up and bounced off the windshield, and then shot to my side of the car.”
McGrath says the vaporizer landed on him, and he brushed it off.
Then, he says, he saw smoke coming from behind the dashboard, so he threw the car into park and told everybody to get out.
“Probably two or three minutes after that, it caught fire,” he said.
Police officers, firefighters and paramedics were called to the area.
They found McGrath’s friend lying in a driveway, having trouble breathing.
The teen was taken to hospital for treatment, and released from care later in the night.
The car they were in was also damaged, with two holes evident in its windshield after the flames were extinguished.
McGrath says he’d previously heard stories about exploding vaporizers, but thought they were “urban legends” until Monday night.
“It didn’t heat up beforehand. It didn’t spark. There was no warning sign – it just blew up in his hand,” he said.
