Projectile Wound to Head from Modified Electronic Cigarette Explosion.

One of the dangers of a rapidly growing technology industry is the risk involved in being intimately close to lithium-ion batteries. When exposed to improper conditions, lithium-ion batteries in a variety of devices have been reported to ignite and, in some cases, explode. With the rise of electronic cigarette use and modifications, the lithium-ion batteries in these devices are subject to a higher risk of malfunction. This is a retrograde analysis of a 38-year-old man who experienced fatal penetrating head trauma while using a modified electronic cigarette device. The findings suggest that the trauma from the explosion was caused by the thermal runaway of the lithium-ion battery in the modified e-cigarette.