Call for warnings after woman electrocuted while using plugged-in phone in bath

Ann-Marie O’Gorman's cellphone was attached to an extension cable in her bedroom. Photo / 123rf

A mother-of-three in Ireland died after being electrocuted while charging her phone in the bath, an inquest has heard.

Ann-Marie O’Gorman, 46, from Santry in County Dublin, was pronounced dead at Beaumont Hospital on October 30 last year.

Joe O’Gorman, her widower, told the coroner that he left their shared home on the night of her death about 6.40pm.

O’Gorman had a 23-second call with his wife at 7.58pm, while he was driving Megan, their youngest daughter, to a school disco in Portmarnock, a nearby Irish coastal town.

After returning home, he went into the bathroom to speak with O’Gorman but found her lying on her side and unresponsive in the bath.

Initially thinking his wife had fallen asleep in the bath, O’Gorman peeled open one of her eyelids to check for a response, but she remained unresponsive.

O’Gorman then noticed that his wife’s iPhone, which was attached to a 3m extension cable, had been plugged into a socket in the bedroom. He grabbed the device which was “just barely in the water” and threw it into the sink.

He pulled his wife out of the bath, receiving a small electric shock, before calling for Leah, his eldest daughter, to ring emergency services. He attempted to give her CPR before she succumbed to the electric shock.

‘A hazard you could die from’

O’Gorman has called for a warning to be displayed on iPhones that charging the device near water “is a hazard you could die from”.

He claimed that another man had died in similar circumstances in London, Britain, in March 2017, while he was also aware of the death of a child in the United States who also used a charging mobile phone in the bath.

He told the inquest: “The only thing you hear about is how these phones are great in up to six feet of water. It gives people the idea that you can have your phone near water."

Paul Collins, a consultant forensic engineer, told the inquest that he believed O’Gorman’s phone fell into the water and in the process of retrieving it, her hand brushed the handle of a shower attachment, causing the electric current to pass through her body.

At current of two amps, typical for chargers, was “more than enough” to kill a person, he told the inquest.

“If she had not taken her hand out of the bath, she would probably still be alive,” he added.

Burns to the chest and arm

Fiona Tormey, a paramedic, gave evidence that an emergency call was received at around 8.25pm with an ambulance arriving at the scene at 8.38pm.

Heidi Okkers, a state pathologist who performed the autopsy, said she had suffered burns to her chest and left arm as well as full-thickness burns to her right index finger and thumb.

She said that no trace of alcohol or drugs were found in O’Gorman’s body, and that there was no evidence that her blood clotting and thyroid conditions contributed to her death.

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