Goodness. From that article it would appear he leaned in over the radiator or from the side and maybe grounded out the positive terminal of the car’s battery with the flashlight, causing the light to explode. His face,neck and upper body would have been exposed to the explosion. Sounds like a horrible way to go…
I do it all the time. Maybe should stop.
Very unfortunate circumstances, those.
All the best for family friends and loved ones.
Does anybody understand what happened here?
poor guy. I lean into the engine bay with my flashlight all the time, thank god my battery is in the trunk and there are no exposed contacts. Still, need to wear headlamp at all times now.
RIP
Wow pretty disturbing. It’s really not clear what happened. If the flashlight shorted the car battery like Dale supposed the flashlight might heat up enough to send the cells into thermal runaway, but this seems unlikely. I wonder if it was a pre existing condition with the light (bad CR123 cells in series or something) or if the article was wrong and it was unrelated to the light (something in the car blew up and they thought it was the flashlight).
You know, that’s a possibility…
Sigh… poor man…
Well, that’s the reason I don’t want lithium batteries on my head.
By the way, this isn’t first time that flashlight was put in the mouth and exploded…
Every day millions if not billions of people hold lithium batteries to there faces by using there phones i dont think its such an issue if engineered well.
Al thought this is not the first case after a quick google search its happen a few times.
This is an older case with pics of the light in the article.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/weird/2015/01/17/exploding-flashlight-lakewood/21921797/
It’s a Solarforce L2T in the picture.
Looks like they where was using 2 cells? If they are the batteries to the side
The article doesn’t say anything about the man putting the light in his mouth, nor does it say anything about whether or not it was a Li-ion flashlight. It was said that when he leaned down into the engine compartment his flashlight exploded. So I was assuming the flashlight grounded the positive battery terminal.
Sorry, my bad, it does say it exploded in his mouth.
Looks like it.
Water ingress from saliva causes a short?
[quote=everydaysurvivalgear]
Every day millions if not billions of people hold lithium batteries to there faces by using there phones i dont think its such an issue if engineered well. [/QUOTE]
Phones aren’t good for holding the pressure - in most cases I can throw it away if I feel phone burning. Also, typically phones are held far enough from most sensitive parts (eyes, mouth…)
Those batteries look to have been 123A type IN SERIES….danger Will Robinson ! Those have been indicated as potentially dangerous before.
And what is the possibility he could have had RCR123’s installed And In Series ! 
Not enough info.
Yep, there are these things called headlamps!
Headlamps, sure… perhaps an explosion near the frontal lobe does less damage.
Odd coincidence that the OP’s name has something to do with death and mortality…
12 volt through a 3v or 4.2v battery , yep !
Thats pretty much how they make Li-ion / LIPO go boom …
From serious over volting …
Check out youtube , I saw one where the guy tried and tried to make lipo fire and failed … Only succeeding when seriously over volting the battery …
Reverse polarity short is ?? , over volting is pretty much a sure thing . ( A lot of extra volts - not just a little )
The boom ! Lipo fire can be nothing , or it can be magic smoke , or flame and smoke , or a small bang and flame or it can be a pipe bomb …
It’s just the luck of the draw , and if 12 volts got jammed through those batteries , ?? it could have been a pipe bomb . ( Those nasty variables )