Baby monitor from Amazon explodes, mom gives urgent warning about ‘terrifying experience’
Fox News
A mom in Rugby, England, is warning parents about a baby monitor purchased off Amazon she said spontaneously burst into flames and “completely filled” her kitchen with smoke “within seconds.”
Shannon Makepeace, 31, told The Sun she had been baking cakes when her Hello Baby monitor, which was on the kitchen counter, started “hissing” and smoking.
She reportedly grabbed her one-year-old daughter Bonnie, who was asleep upstairs, and her son Joey, three, before dashing out their Warwickshire home.
The Sun reported that Makepeace’s mother Carmen, 51, smothered the burning device in a towel and threw it outside.
The incident occurred last Tuesday, marking only two weeks after Makepeace bought the Motorola-manufactured monitor from Amazon, which costs just £39.99, or about $51.
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Meakepeace told the outlet that had the monitor exploded while the family were asleep, the outcome could have been tragic.
“It was a terrifying experience,” Makepeace said.
“The monitor was in the kitchen. It had fallen forwards by itself and was making a sort of hissing noise,” she siad.
“Smoke was coming out of it really fast and filled the downstairs of my house within seconds. It smelled absolutely awful.
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“It just happened really fast, it was like a whistling kettle,” she described.
Makepeace said that she thought, “It might really explode, like you see electric bikes sometimes do.”
“The kitchen was completely filled with smoke, and it was filled with a smell of burning plastic,” she said.
The fire scorched the kitchen countertop, and photos show the melted remains of the monitor.
Makepeace complained to the manufacturers Hello Baby but claims they just emailed her offering to refund her the money.
“The monitor burned my kitchen worktop and would no doubt have caused a serious fire had the circumstances been different,” Makepeace recounted to The Sun.
“We emailed the company, and they replied with a very non-sympathetic offer of a refund and ‘Sorry for the inconvenience,'” she said.
“It looks like the battery exploded in it. We emailed the company and explained what had happened. The first email was that they wanted the Amazon number and to offer a refund,” she said.
The device was not plugged into a wall outlet at the time of the fire.
Makepeace told The Sun that the manufacturing company had sent some certificates from testing, saying that theoretically it shouldn’t happen.
“I was there, and I saw it, so we could take action quickly. We used that monitor every night and asleep. It’s often on a carpet,” she said. “We’re unlucky that it happened, but lucky it happened when and where it did.”
An Amazon spokesperson told The Sun, “Safety is a top priority at Amazon and we want customers to shop with confidence on our stores.”
“We require all products to comply with applicable laws and regulations and when appropriate, we remove a product from the store, reach out to sellers, manufacturers, and government agencies for additional information, or take other actions,” Amazon said.
“If customers have concerns about an item they’ve purchased, we encourage them to contact our Customer Service directly so we can investigate and take appropriate action,” the company said.
Fox News Digital reached out to Hello Baby for comment but did not hear back in time for publication.