A British man has suffered severe burns after his iPhone exploded following a fall from his mountain bike.
Gareth Clear's iPhone 6 bore the brunt of the impact when the 36-year-old took a tumble during a ride around Australia's Manly Dam on Sunday afternoon.
He noticed smoke and searing heat coming from his phone seconds before it exploded, melting through his shorts and two layers of skin on his upper right thigh.
Mr Clear suffered severe burns. Pic: Gareth Clear/Storyful
Mr Clear, who lives in Bondi but is originally from Winchester, Hampshire, needed a skin graft at the burns unit of the Royal North Shore Hospital in Sydney.
He told Australia's Daily Telegraph newspaper: "The phone did hit the ground, it didn't just spontaneously combust.
The damaged iPhone. Pic: Gareth Clear/Storyful
"It was a one in one million chance I hit a part of the phone which pierced the lithium battery and it exploded.
"I'm 36, I've had a mobile phone for 18 years of my life and for that thing to explode or short circuit and cause it to temporarily ignite.
The mountain biker needed a skin graft. Pic: Gareth Clear/Storyful
"I could see the metal bending and all the lithium leaking out of the bottom end."
While the top of his phone is perfectly intact, Mr Clear said the base of the phone looks like "something from a chemical explosion".
Mr Clear is on a drip to stop infection. Pic: Gareth Clear/Storyful
For now, he is hooked up to a drip to prevent infection of his wound and doctors have said his recovery will take weeks.
Mr Clear said Apple has promised to investigate the incident, although the firm has not commented officially.
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