A dangerous social media trend is sparking trouble. School and fire officials across the country are warning parents about what’s being called the “Chromebook challenge.”
“What happens with lithium batteries is that they will reignite,” said fire official Chief John Olivieri. “Most people do not know that so they’ll bring it back into the house, put it away thinking it is ok and then hours later we’ll have a problem.”
It’s believed the challenge started on TikTok and has kids sticking metal objects like paper clips into laptop charging ports.
Firefighters say that causes devices to short circuit. They overheat and can even catch fire.
“You see in the videos when the laptops start to smoke, and then once the batteries start to fail, you’ll see turbulent smoke pushing out at a rapid pace,” said fire official Chase Hamilton. “And that puts the battery in what is called ‘thermal runaway.’ At that point, [the] batteries are going to continue to overheat to where they could explode.”
A New Jersey high school was forced to evacuate Wednesday when a student reportedly tampered with a Chromebook, causing it to ignite.
“That probably could’ve caused a bigger fire,” said a student. “There were papers all around the place in the video.”
A similar situation happened last year in Peabody, leading to the evacuation of a middle school.
Officials say a student was injured after two others intentionally tampered with a Chromebook.
First responders are urging parents to speak with their kids.
“We don’t want to put students at risk. We don’t want to put our first responders at risk responding to a scene that they really shouldn’t have to. So the message is, parents, please watch your kids. They’re serious implications for doing something wrong like this,” said police officer Mark Minichini.
(Copyright (c) 2024 Sunbeam Television. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)