E-Cigarette Explodes in Man's Mouth

Scary news for electronic smokers: A 57-year-old man in Florida suffered serious injuries when an e-cigarette exploded in his mouth, ABC reports. The explosion knocked out all the man's teeth and part of his tongue, and severely burned his face. "The best analogy is that it was like trying to hold a bottle rocket in your mouth when it went off," says the police officer who responded to the call. "The battery flew out of the tube and set the closet on fire."

The brand of e-cigarette or age of the device isn't known, but investigators say it appears that the battery was rechargeable lithium, and that a faulty battery caused the blast. The co-founder of the Tobacco Vapor Electronic Cigarette Association says 2.5 million Americans, mostly ex-smokers, use the devices, and this is the first such incident reported. "There have been billions and billions of puffs on the cigarettes, and we have not heard of this happening before," he says. (More electronic cigarette stories.)