Skip to main content

A teacher's Samsung S7 Edge explodes in the middle of a busy English cafe

Samsung Galaxy S7 smartphone explodes in the middle of busy cafe
Another day, another exploding Samsung phone. Just a couple days after a Galaxy Note 7 exploded in the hands of a 6-year-old boy, a different Samsung smartphone met a similar fate in the hands of a teacher and mother of two. According to new reports, 30-year-old Sarah Crockett was in the middle of a busy cafe when she realized that her relatively new Samsung S7 Edge (she’d bought it three months before), began to “balloon in size.” Soon thereafter, it began emitting smoke, and melted into a useless pile.

As luck would have it, CCTV camera crews happened to be on site in the cafe in Witham, Essex, England, when the phone began to malfunction. “It suddenly just expanded in my hand and got really, really hot,” Crockett told The Sun. “I dropped it on the table. Within a few seconds there was smoke everywhere and I jumped out of the way. The whole thing was just barbecued.”

While the Galaxy Note 7 has been at the center of much of the controversy surrounding Samsung as of late, this isn’t the first incident involving the S7 Edge. In fact, there’s already litigation involving the South Korean smartphone maker and the Edge — back in May, an S7 owner was severely burned when his phone caught fire in his pocket, and subsequently exploded when he tried to remove it.

Crockett, in comparison, was much luckier, though she noted that she “lost all [her] photos.” All the same, she said, the situation could have been much worse. “What if it had been in [my son’s] hands? What if I had been driving?” Crockett has since sent the footage from CCTV to Samsung, and noted, “They said it must have been charging at the time and I told them it wasn’t — which seemed to surprise them as they said it was the first they’d heard anything like this.”

A Samsung spokesman has responded to the incident, stating, “There are no known safety issues with Galaxy S7 devices. This issue is currently being investigated and our customer services team is in contact with the customer regarding the matter.”

Editors' Recommendations

Lulu Chang
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Fascinated by the effects of technology on human interaction, Lulu believes that if her parents can use your new app…
A new version of the Samsung Galaxy S24 could be coming soon
Samsung Galaxy S23 FE Mint Green color along with a coaster and leaf in the front.

Samsung Galaxy S23 FE Tushar Mehta / Digital Trends

Samsung could soon be adding a new phone to the flagship Galaxy S24 lineup. Following the Galaxy S24, S24 Plus, and S24 Ultra from earlier this year, it looks like Samsung is getting ready to launch the Galaxy S24 FE.

Read more
Samsung Galaxy Watch 7: news, rumored price, release date, and more
The Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 and Galaxy Watch 6 Classic next to each other.

Galaxy Watch 6 Classic (left) and Galaxy Watch 6 (right) Andrew Martonik / Digital Trends

Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 6 is one of the best smartwatches that you can buy right now, especially if you’re using a Galaxy smartphone. But as good as it is, there's also no denying how much of an iterative update it was over the Galaxy Watch 5. It's about time we see some bigger changes to Samsung's smartwatch family.

Read more
5 things I want to see in the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra and S Pen stylus on its screen.

The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra is definitely one of the best smartphones on the market right now, no doubt about that. You get incredible performance with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip, plenty of RAM and storage, a whopping 200MP camera, two telephoto lenses for 3x and 5x optical zoom, S Pen integration, and more. It’s certainly an impressive package.

But it’s not perfect. In fact, some weaknesses could be improved in the next version, the Galaxy S25 Ultra. Here’s what I hope to see next year.
A new design
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra (left) and Galaxy S23 Ultra Andy Boxall / Digital Trends

Read more