Vaping & Ambulance Chasing

If there’s one constant in this multiverse it is the incessant need for folk to have to blame someone else for their stupidity. In some (rare) cases, it is actually the fault of the product either through some kind of wacky early-life failure or through some product design flaw. Sadly, the majority of these kinds of cases is simply down to Darwinism.

Well OK, not all cases are down to Darwinism some are, to put it mildly outright lying.

We’ve all seen the various “stories” (lung-hole man and the “vaping made me deaf” springs to mind) peppered across the good old t’interwebz. Things like “e-cigarette explosions” which in most cases are simply a case of user error (though not all, there is such a thing as a random failure), most of these can be traced back to the fact that the user didn’t understand what they were doing.

I mean, come on a 20A cell (see Gords, right term this time!) with a sub-ohm coil that pulls far more than that, is frankly a recipe for disaster. Add to that, a terrible mod design with little or no venting for the cell and you have yourself an accident waiting to happen. Or the other (relatively common one) is a bottom firing mechanical mod that is “put down and it starts firing on its own”; we’ll that’s because you put it down on the bloody fire button you moron.

The trouble with all this is not just the fact that it creates scary headlines, but also a whole new lawsuit culture has arisen from them. Oddly enough, it seems that one particular manufacturer is catching a lot of the heat from these; the cynic in me thinks this is an attempt to discredit Chinese manufacturing (by the way, try eliminating all goods manufactured in China from your home and see how you get on…) as a means of “proving how unregulated” the industry is.

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What makes these folks worse isn’t the fact that they are “representing” the very small minority of users that are being daft, it’s the fact that they are actively encouraging folk to get in touch with them to report all kinds of “incidents” related to e-cigarettes. Sadly, there are other examples of this from other industries in the US. It’s all part of the lawsuit culture that is prevalent, it does make me wonder just how far this will go.

Oh wait…there’s this. Don’t get me wrong, if it was indeed the device that caused those injuries then they are substantial, but there’s something odd about the “exploded device”..

If it “exploded” as claimed, then why does the rest of the device look undamaged?

I suspect, as time goes on we’ll undoubtedly see more of these ambulance chasing lawsuits, seeking to capitalise in someway from the expanding vaping industry. The take away here is predominantly one of battery safety, if you have any doubts about it, don’t use it. It won’t stop the Darwinism or the ones who blatantly lie from trying it on, but it will limit the number of these reports out there.

Some Safety Tips

• Always use an appropriate charger
• Do not leave cells/batteries charging unattended or overnight
• Store your cells/batteries correctly
• If you carry a spare battery/cell, use a case
• Make sure you use the right cell/battery for the device & coil you are using
• DO NOT use a damaged battery/cell

There’s a whole host more, but these are the most common-sense ones. Taking these simple steps will definitely help in keeping your devices from becoming potential accidents.