A mother speaks out after her son nearly lost his life because of his phone charger. The accident prompted her to warn others about the possibility of the same thing happening to them.
A night that nearly turned into tragedy
Danielle Davis was jolted awake by the cries of her 16-year-old son, Rayce Ogdahl, on the morning of April 20, 2024.
She recalls: “I heard him yell ‘Mommy,’ and my son was standing in the hallway.” She rushed to her son’s side to see that he had burn marks around his neck.
“He said, ‘I’ve been electrocuted,’” she remembers of that terrifying moment.
A metal necklace, a faulty charger
Danielle recounted that her son told her he was in bed and had turned over to get comfortable when he heard something fall onto his bed. His phone was charging so the school alarm would go off in the morning.
But when Rayce turned over, his metal necklace came into contact with the exposed prongs of the extension cord charger plug.
The contact caused a power surge through the necklace, which burned the teenager’s neck.
The mother added to the horrific details of the accident: “Because everything was metal, it made a complete circuit around his neck.”
Rayce was reportedly “fully conscious throughout the entire incident and aware that he was being electrocuted.” He felt pain as the current passed through his body.
“He said it all happened in a matter of seconds and that he clearly saw sparks coming out of his neck,” the mother said. “He told me his whole body ached and he thought he was going to die.”
The pain and fear of dying
After hearing the screams and seeing the damage, she immediately rushed her child to Integris Health Baptist Medical Center in Oklahoma.
After examining him, doctors determined that Rayce had suffered second-, third-, and fourth-degree burns. They also told them he had received an electric shock of sufficient intensity to kill him.
A potentially fatal electric shock
He had scars that covered almost his entire neck, from his chin to his collarbone. The pattern of the necklace is visible on his skin from the accident.
She noted that the accident had made her son “much more self-aware.”
The mother added, “We are so grateful he’s okay. He could easily have died that night. It’s incredible that he was still conscious and able to alert us. The story would have been different.”
She now issues a warning to others: “When it comes to your phone, there isn’t a text message or notification important enough to warrant having your phone on your bed. Anything can happen, and Rayce is proof of that.”
A mother raises the alarm
“Be careful with your cables, and I would recommend that everyone not use extension cords,” she said.
Overall, we are happy that Rayce is doing better. Share this information with others so that they too can follow this advice and protect themselves.
