Story By: Sofija Dizdarevik, Sub-Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Central European News
An 11-year-old schoolgirl has died from an electric shock while using her phone in the bath while it was plugged in and charging.
The girl was in the bath at her parents home in Dornbirn, a city in the Austrian state of Vorarlberg in the far west of the country on the border with Switzerland.
The incident happened on Sunday afternoon when the girl allegedly had an electric shock in the bath where she was using her smartphone while lying in the water.
According local media, the girl had locked the door and her mother became suspicious when she knocked and heard no answer.
Suspecting something was wrong, she looked through the bathroom window and then spotted her daughters motionless body in the bath tub.
An uncle who was on the property at the time then smashed the door down, pulled the girl out of the water and started the resuscitation process.
Medics were also called to the scene but could only confirm the girl had died.
According to local media, the girl had significant burn marks on her body after she was pulled from the tub, and her cell phone was also in the tub still plugged-in to a charging cable.
It was not revealed what make of phone was being used.
Expert from the Feldkirch public prosecutor, Rudolf Mork-Morkenstein, told local media that judging by the burns, a lot of electricity must have been involved.
He said that, provisionally, it appeared there was a significant problem saying: “Injuries of this type cannot happen in a properly functioning cell phone alone, the must have been something significantly wrong.”
He said it was suspected that the cell phone charging cable may have been connected via an extension cable when it fell into the bathtub.
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