iPhone explodes in China, injures user's eye

A woman in China came close to losing her eyesight after her iPhone 5 exploded in her hand and sent out debris which scratched her cornea.

According to a report published by Da Lian Evening News on Friday, the injured woman whose family name is Li arrived at her workplace and was on the phone with her friend when she felt the screen growing very warm against her cheek. At that time, she had been on the phone for 40 minutes. 

When she looked at the device to check it, Li then discovered the touchscreen was not responding when she tried to end the call. After a few more tries, the screen exploded. 

Li said she felt some debris shooting into her eyes. "I could not open my eyes," she recalled. Her colleagues rushed her to the hospital where the doctor found her eyeball red and inflamed, and identified a scratch mark which suggested an object had scratched it.

Li told Da Lian Evening News she bought the iPhone 5 in September of 2012. She revealed she dropped the phone once and the impact had left a small dent on the top right corner of the screen where it exploded. But she said the phone was still useable despite the degraded level of responsiveness after the drop.

She added that she was not expecting any compensation from Apple, but wondered why her friends' less expensive phones with similar screen problems didn't blow up.

A staff from Apple's after-sales service department told Da Lian Evening News such incidents required further investigation and typically would not be covered under product warranty.