PSP Catches Fire
February 08, 2008 | by Christopher Nickson
A Detroit youth escaped injury when his PSP caught fire — in his pants pocket.
There have been several incidents of lithium-iron batteries catching fire, but they’ve mostly affected laptops. On Wednesday, however, 12-year-old Henry Clay from Detroit found that his Sony PSP burst into flames in his pants pocket, Vnunet reports.
On Click On Detroit, the boy’s mother, Sheila Clay, explained,
"He said it wasn't a gradual heat. It really started heating up. He's always been taught burn - fire - smoke, you drop and you roll. So, he dropped and rolled."
The handheld wasn’t on, as it was nine a.m. and the boy was in class. A teacher was able to remove the PSP from his pocket, and as a result Clay was treated for second-degree burns to his leg. In a slightly ironic touch, the Burn Out game was in the handheld at the time.
Sony has had battery fire problems with its notebooks before, but not a PSP. If this turns out to be the tip of the iceberg, it could seriously hurt its position against other devices like the Nintendo DS.
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