Electrocuted girl’s text: using phone cord in bath
LOVINGTON, N.M. (KLBK) — The family of Madison Coe, 14, authorized the release of her last image sent via text before she died while staying with her dad in Lovington, New Mexico.
Her family says she was electrocuted when trying to use her charging cellphone in a bathtub. Now, they hope to prevent such a tragedy from happening to anyone else.
Madison was a student in the Frenship Independent School District in Wolfforth, Texas. There were plans for her to attend high school in Houston.
She was electrocuted early June 9 while in a bathtub and using a cellphone that was plugged into a charger.
Her last text to a friend included a picture of the phone charger plugged into an extension cord.
The statement from Lovington Police said:
The Lovington Police Department has completed the investigation of the accidental electrocution of a fourteen year old female which occurred in the City of Lovington on Sunday, July 9, 2017.
As previously disclosed, the Office of the Medical Investigator has issued a preliminary cause and manner of death as an accidental electrocution. Additional investigation was conducted by the Criminal Investigations Division of the Lovington Police Department and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.
The child had been using her Samsung S6 Edge cellular telephone while taking a bath. Evidence shows she had plugged this cellular telephone into a phone charger cord, which was plugged into an extension cord which was plugged into a non-GFCI, non-grounded bathroom wall outlet.
Specific evidence shows that the cellular telephone was never immersed in the water. While the child took precautions to keep the connection of the cords dry, it is believed she was not aware of a significant area of fraying to the extension cord. Forensic evidence indicated that she came in contact with this area of the frayed extension cord while she was still in the bathtub which contained water at the time, resulting in her electrocution.
Besides the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission assisting in this investigation, Underwriter’s Laboratories in Chicago, Illinois was also consulted. The investigation was reviewed by the New Mexico Fifth Judicial District Attorney’s Office.