WARNING TO CELL-PHONE USERS

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WARNING TO CELL-PHONE USERS: 'Stay away from power poles'

 

BANGKOK: -- A senior academic yesterday warned people against using their cell phones close to high-voltage power poles - a move that exposes them to the risk of electric shock and their phone exploding.

 

"You're already in danger if you are about six or seven metres from a power pole," said Dr Tawil Peungma, the dean of the institute's Faculty of Engineering at King Mongkut's Institute of Technology Lad Krabang.

 

Turning off the cell phone did not mean the user could safely get closer to the pole, he said.

 

Discharges of electromagnetic waves from cell phones could cause a spark and attract a flow of electricity from the poles to the phone, thus subjecting its user to the risk of fatality.

 

On March 12, welder Prasit Sri-luang's cell phone exploded and he suffered a severe electric shock immediately after his communications gadget rang near a high-voltage pole in Angthong.

 

As part of the treatment, doctors amputated Prasit's right leg and some of the toes on his left foot. The patient remains in Angthong Hospital.

 

On Wednesday his wife Pranee sought help from MP Premsak Piayura, the chairman of the House Committee on Labour, after the hospital informed her that the medical bill for her husband had already exceeded the compensation fund's coverage for workers injured on the job.

 

The coverage was Bt85,000. Prasit's medical bill already totalled Bt100,000.

 

Premsak said he had instructed the Social Security Office to pay for Prasit's medical expenses and would ask Angthong Hospital to continue treating Prasit.

 

Tawil said cell phone users should regularly check their gadgets' condition because wear-and-tear could leave the phones' insulators less efficient and leave too much heat inside the gadget.

 

"Then the phones could explode," he said, adding that cell phone users should always buy genuine batteries.

 

--The Nation 2004-04-09