Scammer
Banned
CHESTNUT HILL, Mass. -- A Boston College student was working on his laptop inside the school library, when it burst into flames on Wednesday afternoon.
"I was just surfing the net and all of a sudden it started smoking and liquid started spewing out," said Kevin Howard, whose laptop exploded.
Howard, a senior, tried to figure out what was going on with his Dell laptop at Boston College's O'Neill Library.
"I kind of jumped back, stood up and unplugged the laptop, and then everybody was kind of looking at me," said Howard.
"I looked up and I saw smoke coming out of Kevin's computer, and he just looked at me with these wide eyes," said David Lavander, a friend.
But smoke and liquid pouring out of the computer was just a warning.
"The bottom of the laptop was just melted off, and then I got a little closer and all of a sudden it just exploded and I felt heat on my face and jumped right back," said Howard.
At that point, BC students evacuated the library until the Newton Fire Department gave the all clear.
"They told me I was lucky I didn't go blind. I was just basically thinking, I'm glad this wasn't on my lap when this happened," said Howard.
The charred table still sits in the middle of the library, and Dell has now vowed to investigate, saying in a statement: "Dell takes the safety of its customers and the quality of its products very seriously and anytime there is a problem with one of our products, we obviously want to know about it to determine the cause and whether it's an isolated incident."
Dell has pledged to reach out to Howard to try and figure out what the problem was that computer.
Four years ago Dell computers recalled millions of laptops for the same problem, but said that Howard's computer didn't fit into the recall parameters.
