A lorry driver suffered horror injuries when an e-cigarette exploded in his hand.<br /><br />Mike Calver, 38, was changing the battery on his device at home in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffs., when it blew up.<br /><br />His hand, beard and clothes were set on fire - while the scolding e-cigarette stuck to his hand.<br /><br />Video shows Mike running to an outside in a bid to douse the flames.<br /><br />Wife Leanne Calver, 29, came to his aid and rushed him to A&E, where plastic surgeons worked on him.<br /><br />Mike is now in recovery, but still has scars from the October 29 ordeal. And he wants people to be aware of the dangers of e-cigarettes.<br /><br />He said: "I bought a new set of batteries on Amazon, and I had loaded them into the e-cig.<br /><br />"As I clicked the battery it exploded. I was engulfed in flames - my hand, beard, and clothes were on fire.<br /><br />"I managed to douse the flames pretty quickly. One of the batteries that exploded stuck to my hands and started to melt into my hand."<br /><br />Leanne, a senior administrator, said: "I was terrified.<br /><br />"In the moment I had no idea if Mike's hand or fingers had been blown off.<br /><br />"And at the same time there was a fireball in the kitchen.<br /><br />"The house was filling rapidly with black smoke and I needed to get Mike to the hospital as soon as possible.<br /><br />"But I was so concerned about getting back to the house and the dogs, who were terrified as well."<br /><br />Mike had bought the e-cigarette and batteries on Amazon in September. He then tried to set it up last month.<br /><br />After the battery exploded, Leanne ran into the kitchen to see if Mike was okay.<br /><br />And he said: "The house quickly filled with smoke - it was not a nice experience.<br /><br />"Leanne was in the front room and heard the bang so she jumped up and came into the kitchen.<br /><br />"I had thrown the e-cig across the room while it was still on fire and it had set fire to the floor.<br /><br />"Leanne managed to put out the fire and started to freak out when she started to see how black my hand was."<br /><br />Mike was taken to the Royal Stoke University Hospital, where he waited for hours with his hand in a cold bucket of water.<br /><br />He said: "The pain was ok when I had my hand in the water.<br /><br />"But I had to keep refilling the bucket as my hand would heat the water up.<br /><br />"In between refilling, I would be in excruciating pain."<br /><br />Mike was then seen by the plastic surgery team at the hospital who performed a procedure to remove the burnt skin.<br /><br />He said the procedure which lasted just over an hour - and was "horrendous".<br /><br />Mike said: "They gave me a lot of morphine but the process itself was horrendous. They had to burst all the blisters and cut all the skin away from my hand.<br /><br />"I was in A&E for six hours and left at 3am the following morning.<br /><br />"They bandaged my hand up and sent me on my way.<br /><br />"Living with what I am living with at the moment is not great."<br /><br />Mike is now on statutory sick pay while he waits for his hand to heal, which could take between four to six weeks.<br /><br />He wants other people to know how quickly something like this can happen.<br /><br />Mike said: "The next morning was when it all sank in, it was a harrowing experience.<br /><br />"I was very lucky that it wasn't on my face and it was just me and my wife in the house.<br /><br />"I am doing ok now, I have had three plastic surgery consultations and they have taken most of the bandages off.<br /><br />"My palm is exposed at the minute and will heal itself - thankfully I don't need a skin graft."
