Woman, 26, dies after charging mobile phone 'slips' into bath
A Russian accountant was killed when a mobile phone she was charging fell in her bath.
Evgenia Shulyatyeva, 26, was electrocuted to death in the latest incident of an alarming number of similar tragic cases in the country.
She was found by mother Vera, 53, who rushed to her daughter’s home in Kirovo-Chepetsk, northeast of Moscow, when she failed to reach her by phone.
The Russian Investigative Committee is examining the incident, reports say.
Ms Shulyatyeva is believed to have been charging the phone while having a bath before it “slipped” into the water.
It was not clear if she was using the device at the moment of the accident.
“The young woman was killed instantly,” one account said.
“Sister... rest in peace... sleep well... you are forever in our hearts," friend Elena Shakleina wrote.
“Call me tomorrow, say that was a just a dream, that this is not the truth.”
“You were so bright …Sleep well,” another friend Anyuta Buyanova said.
The case is the latest in a spate of such deaths involving mainly young females in Russia.
Officials warn of mobile phone danger
Experts have repeatedly warned about the dire risks of electrocution from using charging mobile phones in the bath.
In August an unnamed 10-year old schoolgirl dropped her phone in the bath at her home in Serov.
It was plugged into the mains.
In July, a 17-year-old youth was electrocuted after listening to music while having a bath on his charging mobile.
In June, Liliya Novikova – an internationally recognised poker star – died after suffering a suspected electric shock in her bathroom.
A mathematics whizkid with a first-class degree in engineering from a top Russian university, the 26-year-old was home alone when she died.
In April, supermarket worker Anastasia, 20, was also found dead by her grief-stricken mother holding the phone in her bath.
She had been electrocuted while using her charging phone in the bath.
A week earlier 14-year-old Yulia Vysotskaya, from Cheboksary, died when her phone which slipped out of her hands in the bath.
Her devastated parents “called an ambulance but paramedics were only able to register the schoolgirl’s death and take her body to the morgue”, one report said.
In December, Russian martial arts champion Irina Rybnikova, 15, died instantly when using her iPhone plugged into a charger while in the bath at her home in Bratsk, Siberia.
Earlier a 12-year-old girl named Kseniya P was electrocuted while listening to music from her charging phone while in the bath in Bolshoe Gryzlovo village, in the Serpukhovsky district of Moscow region.
Her mother was cooking an evening meal and became worried about Kseniya’s silence.
She went into the bathroom and found the girl “already dead with her head under the water”.
The phone was floating in the bath.
Electronics engineer Andrey Stanovsky has warned “relaxing in a bathroom with your mobile phone plugged is like playing Russian roulette”.
After Irina's death, Yury Agrafonov, the head of radio-electronic department of Irkutsk State University, said: “Water is a good conductor.
"This is why there was a short circuit when the phone fell into the water.
“If the phone had not been plugged in to 220 volts, the tragedy would not have happened.”
– Australscope
Do you have a story tip? Email: newsroomau@yahoonews.com.
You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter, download the Yahoo News app from the App Store or Google Play and stay up to date with the latest news with Yahoo’s daily newsletter. Sign up here.
