LEHI, Utah (ABC4) – It was a frightening moment for one Utah family when a hoverboard caught fire and exploded Thursday morning.
One little boy barely escaped the explosion as he ran past the hoverboard.
“My son saw huge billowing electrical smoke and said, ‘Mom my hoverboard. Something is wrong with my hoverboard,’” says Tamilisa Miner.
Seconds were all she had to make quick decisions, and she relied on her mother’s intuition.
“Moment to moment was really scary,” she tells us. “I just say, ‘ok get out.’ I knew it was going to blow. I knew it, and they ran out. They did it. They ran right out but as my son ran past (click) boom, and I’m grateful he is ok.”
While the children screamed for their mom, she says she dodged exploding batteries flying out of the hoverboard.
“There is no time to even think,” she says.
Her husband and her would then grab fire extinguishers, quickly putting the fire out.
“The fireman came, they looked around, came outside and said, ‘If they didn’t have a fire extinguisher, didn’t know how to use it, and because of the quick actions of the homeowners, this home was saved. This story could have been very different,” says Miner.
Since 2015, the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission has investigated more than 250 hoverboards catching fire or overheating.
Miner has a plea to other parents who have kids with hoverboards adding, “Do not charge it at night. Do not charge it if it is out of your sight, I would charge it outside of my home out in the street.”
Because for the Miners, they could have lost their home, or worse, each other.
