Australian woman electrocuted by faulty charger
Mother of two Sheryl Anne Aldeguer, aged 28, was discovered wearing headphones and with her computer in her lap. She had suffered burns to her chest and ears at a home in Gosford, north of Sydney.
Police believe a high voltage had passed through her body. It is believed a A$4.95 (€3.40) phone charger sent a high-voltage electrical pulse into her phone, which transferred to the earphones she had connected to a laptop.
The victim, originally from the Philippines, had been due to start work as a theatre nurse at Gosford Hospital within days. She had spent six months in Melbourne converting her nursing training to Australian standards and hoped her young family would join her within months.
Fair Trading NSW’s Lynelle Collins said Ms Aldeguer, who was in Australia on a working visa, was talking on the phone which was plugged into a wall socket at the time.
The Department of Fair Trading, which has assisted investigators looking into the case, pointed the finger at a sub-standard mobile phone charger as the cause of death.
“The phone was also plugged into a USB-style charger. That charger had failed,” said Lynelle Collins of the New South Wales Department of Fair Trading. “The voltage seems to travel up through the faulty charger into her phone and she was wearing earplugs and also operating a laptop which was also plugged into a power point.
“So the [electricity] travelled back down through the earphones to the laptop and into the power point. “Two-hundred-and-forty volts travelled up into the phone, which obviously the phone isn’t designed to handle. Bodies are very good conductors of electricity so it’s travelled through her body.”
Fair Trading Commissioner Rod Stowe said the owners of the Campsie business which sold Ms Aldeguer the non-complaint charger could face fines of up to A$875,000 and a two-year custodial sentence. Fair Trading said it had removed a number of unapproved and non-compliant USB-style chargers, travel adaptors and power boards from sale in Sydney.
