Wyoming Man Hospitalized After Exposure To Fumes During Lithium-Ion Battery Fire

A Daniel, Wyoming man who narrowly averted a home fire last week after a lithium-ion battery spontaneously combusted has landed in the hospital with what he believes are complications from inhaling toxic fumes. “I’m a big puzzle right now,” Jack Morey Jr. told Cowboy State Daily. “They don’t know, long-term, what this is going to do to me. I’ve got several issues going on because of it.”

Morey’s symptoms started just after the battery incident. While driving to the post office, his brand-new glasses “suddenly didn’t work anymore.” He called his VA clinic and was advised to go to the emergency room, then transferred by ambulance to a larger hospital in Idaho for advanced testing. Doctors have found no clear cause yet for his symptoms, which also include a gravelly voice, chest tightness, headaches, dizziness, confusion, and burning sensations in his throat, nose, mouth, and eyes. His girlfriend, Diana Gunderson, said Morey has developed a stutter he never had before.

“It literally blew up kind of in our faces,” Morey said. The morning of the fire, Gunderson noticed a lithium-ion battery she had been charging was visibly swollen. When she picked it up to take it to the door, it started smoking and sparking in her hand. She dropped it on a rug, and seconds later flames at least a foot tall shot out, scorching the floor. Morey smothered the battery with a towel and tossed it outside onto a concrete pad.

Morey, a former firefighter, said his main concern is warning the public about the dangers of these batteries. “We were just charging this, that’s all we were doing,” he said. He noted that many people have messaged him saying they plan to set up special charging areas using ceramic tile, but he stressed that the fire burns too hot to leave batteries unattended. “If we hadn’t been there when this happened, our house would be gone,” he said. “We had these for about four or five years and they’d been just fine. Then all of a sudden—and we haven’t dropped them, damaged them, or anything like that.”

Sublette County Unified Deputy Fire Chief Bob Kladianos said the fumes from lithium-ion batteries are highly toxic. Firefighters responded in full self-contained breathing apparatus. Kladianos urged people to buy batteries tested and approved by Underwriters Laboratories; the battery that caught fire did not have a UL stamp. During “thermal runaway,” these batteries can reach up to 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit. Water is not recommended because it creates hazardous contaminated runoff.

Lithium-ion battery fires have become increasingly common nationwide, a product of cheap imports. Rock Springs Fire Chief Jim Wamsley has said small fire departments are playing catchup. If one cell suffers damage and reacts, it triggers a chain reaction—an unstoppable, intense fire.

Morey said doctors cannot tell him whether he will have long-term issues. “I might have problems down the road, and they can’t tell me when, how long, or anything like that,” he said. “They just don’t know. So hopefully, we can get the word out about these batteries. This is just pretty crazy stuff.”