AfterDawn: News

Seven year old killed in tragic accident with Game Boy

Reports coming out of Phuket Thailand are saying that a seven year old British boy, Conner O'Keeff was electrocuted Saturday when attempting to plug in his power adapter for the Nintendo Game Boy into a hotel outlet. Details are sketchy right now as Thailand police are still doing a complete investigation, however police state that Conner had still be wet from swimming earlier when he attempted to plug in the game unit.

Police say that Sunset Beach Hotel in Patong Beach, Phuket, Thailand holds no blame on the incident and that it can be surmised that the boy either attempted to plug in or remove the power adapter and made a fatal connection with the water on his skin to the power outlet.



UPDATE: Nintendo of Europe has issued a statement regarding the tragic incident. "Nintendo wishes to offer its sincere condolences to the family of Connor O'Keefe," reads the statement. "Details of the accident are currently unclear so we are unable to make any further comment at this stage," it added.

The news was picked up by several UK newspapers who gave it the headline "Killed by Game Boy."

Source:
The Register

Written by: Dave Horvath @ 5 Jan 2007 6:14

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• 35 comments

• anubis66

  ahahah how odd. what child messes with electronics while wet? by the age of 6 you should have been taught most household dangers. i blame the parents for getting him something he was not old enought to understand.

  5.1.2007 07:59 #1

• Pop_Smith

  anubis66, why are you laughing about this? (at least thats what your ahahah looks like your doing to me)
  
  Most kids don't play with electricity and it looks to me like the kid wasn't. Electricity probably "jumped" from the wall when he plugged his DS in or he could have been touching the metal prongs that go into the outlet. With him being wet it caused the electricity to flow though most of his body fairly quickly causing this poor child his death.
  
  However, in my opinion the title is incorrect as this boy was not electrocuted by his DS but simply by the wall outlet when he plugged in the power adapter. The title makes it seem like his DS electrocuted him.

  5.1.2007 08:08 #2

• Dela

  Quote:ahahah how odd. what child messes with electronics while wet? by the age of 6 you should have been taught most household dangers. i blame the parents for getting him something he was not old enought to understand.Kids wouldnt have a very good concept of "consequence" by the age of 7. Remember the old sega megadrive? When I was around 7 I, for some reason, took the power adapter connector out of the console and put it in my mouth, by then I knew electricity was dangerous but I still did it. lucky for me, I just saw weird colours, got a small shock and yanked the chord straight out of my mouth. This isn't the parents fault either, it's a freak accident, it happens. Poor Kid. May he rest in peace.

  5.1.2007 08:10 #3

• anubis66

  what are you talking about? by that age i knew what would kill me. i wouldnt be wet near the walls, i wouldnt go under the sink in hte kitchen, i wouldnt drink things i didnt already know, i wouldnt play with knives past cutting boxes. i wasnt laughing at the kid, i was laughing at the irony that anyone would be wet near electricity.

  5.1.2007 08:13 #4

• Dela

  im pretty sure the average seven year old doesn't know that water conducts electricity, thats all I'm saying. Kids do things sporadically, they are just simply not wise enough, not at age 7 anyway.

  5.1.2007 08:18 #5

• anubis66

  i remember when i was seven my moms bf taught me to creat an electrical link using a bowl of brine. it was amazing then. i guess different people get different exposure at different ages. its just odd either way.
  
  may i ask where his parents were anyways? why were they not watching him? why didnt he DRY OFF fter leaving the pool like all sane people do?

  5.1.2007 08:27 #6

• Dela

  Quote:may i ask where his parents were anyways? why were they not watching him? why didnt he DRY OFF fter leaving the pool like all sane people do?Mate, they were on holiday, and its common sense to watch your kids in a new place thats for sure, but he was in the hotel room, the safest place as far as the parents were concerned and it's more than likely that they just turned their backs for a minute and it happened.

  5.1.2007 08:30 #7

• Pop_Smith

  Thank you (probably Dela) to whom ever changed the title and thank you for changing it to tragic (as it is) instead of the second thing it was changed to.

  5.1.2007 08:36 #8

• anubis66

  its a shame to lose a life, but its survival of the fitest. kids need to be watch or they succomb to things you dont want to imagine. even if the parents thought he was safe, the kid still did not dry off. this all could have been prevented if little kids were not so attached to games as to play them while soaked.

  5.1.2007 08:51 #9

• mystic

  wet or not it could have been something as simple as 110 vrs 220 if you travil one has to keep it in mind it's always sad when children get hurt and I say its more of the fault of the adults in this equasion who should be doing the un plugging of the unit. who lets their child play around with sockets...? see this is why it scares me to see kids with those otter-boxes for the ipods hey think well it says it water proff so I'll go swimming with the damn thing on and zap... darwinizm ......water and electrizity dont mix anyone who thinks diffrent come bye my flat and I'll hook ya up to me car with the jumpers and then hose ya down... nuff said
  

  5.1.2007 09:09 #10

• borhan9

  It's just a known fact that electricity and water don't mix. This just re-confirms my view on electronic stuff that you purchase overseas is not a good choice. Although it can be cheaper it has it's downside.

  5.1.2007 10:16 #11

• vegeta66

  this is a classic sign of poor parenting, by the age of 4 anyone should be well aware of house hold dangers. i was, and i never did anything such as stick metal objects in outlets, this kinda stuff is common sense. parents need to be more like parents and stop being their kids friends.

  5.1.2007 10:54 #12

• Dela

  Kids aren't adults and adults aren't CCTV cameras, u don't follow your kid around everywhere they go. If they are at home, in the house, u don't keep one eye on them and one eye on the TV all day, u check in on them regularly, but like I said, you're not a damn CCTV camera. If you're kids are outside, you keep more of a watch over them.
  
  People are quick to comment with stuff like "who lets their child play around with sockets...?" - who said they let their kid play around with anything electrical? When their backs were turned this kid might have just decided he wanted to plug in/out his gaming device, maybe if the parent was right there at that very moment, they would have done it for him.
  
  They were on holiday in a "new" environment and this kid was obviously in the hotel room, which is where the parents probably felt most comfortable with him being. So they propbably had backs turned for a second and that's it.... their kids is gone forever, they were in the closest thing they had to their home there and still even in that environment a tragic accident occured.
  
  Simply put, it was an accident, even the police put no blame on anybody over the incident, something bad just happened. This is not like a parent who let their kids listen to eminem and then complain that their kids swear (which is their own fault then) this was just an accident. People are very quick to throw blame on anyone they can, I honestly do not believe you can say this is their fault.

  5.1.2007 11:08 #13

• Davedough

  As a parent of a 4 year old, I actually take a bit of offense at that statement. I challenge you to recall anything in specific of when you were 4 years old and tell me exactly where your mindstate was at enough to make such a bold claim.
  
  Poor parenting? Kids will be kids, and the advent of video games and other such distractions have changed the rules for parents all together. A friend of mine has a 4 year old boy who would wet himself because he was too engrossed in a video game to put it down and go to the bathroom. Think of the same possible scenario here. The kid had just got done with a swim in a tropic region. The whole time, he was thinking that his Pokemon would fight better if he did "this". (Forgive the vagueness as I dont know much about gameboy games) He goes in side, and figures he'll just plug it in and go, not realising that he still has beads of water coming down his arm. Even after the walk from the pool to the hotel room in which ambient air gave him plenty of time to dry. This was an accident and accidents happen.
  
  You're trying to tell me that at 4 years old, your brain could process that entire scenario and know what you should and should not do? Dont blame the parents, there is no blame here. Its an accident that stripped a precious life away from a set of parents, have sympathy.

  5.1.2007 11:10 #14

• SPIKE2004

  WOW! This death really has SPARKED alot of interest.
  
  Though I will say by that age I like anubis66 knew what would and wouldnt kill me.
  
  Water and Electricity just dont mix, but sure as anything Nintendo will be to blame, as they probably forgot to mention in the manual dont play while wet!!!

  5.1.2007 15:18 #15

• narcismo

  Quote:ahahah how odd. Pop Smith, i dont think anubis was laughing. more like Ah Ha. at any rate, it just a tragedy that could have happend to anyone(even if his parents were sitting there , reading him the latest excerpt from "don't do this weekly")unfortunatly it happens every day. just be glad it was'nt your child.

  5.1.2007 20:30 #16

• pepsimaxx

  jeez, that was pretty harsh Anubis.. i dont like kids.. but still.. lol. not really all that pleaseant.
  

  
  
  
  

  5.1.2007 20:36 #17

• narcismo

  Quote:Poor parenting? Kids will be kidsvery true...and equally true...just being a kid may get you killed. but as a parent what the hell can you do? should we all start locking our children in cages like pets? i'm sure the lawers who will be rep. this case will have you believe so. hold onto your socks NINTENDO!

  5.1.2007 20:40 #18

• tabletpc

  are you kiding me this is funny as heck
  
  how stupid do you have to be to play with electricty while wet man talk about stupid kid most kids have the common intelegence to not play with water near a electric outlet
  
  

  5.1.2007 21:38 #19

• anubis66

  Quote:You're trying to tell me that at 4 years old, your brain could process that entire scenario and know what you should and should not do?this kid was 7, so yes.
  
  Quote:Pop Smith, i dont think anubis was laughing. more like Ah Ha.yeah, its just funny how something like this happens, and let alone gets reported on here. its interesting thats for sure.
  

  But they all do sort of the same thing, and that is rearrange what you thought was real, and they remind you of the beauty of very simple things. You forget, because you're so busy going from a to z, that there's 24 letters in between... You turn on... tune in... and you drop out...
  
  
  
  PS3 Username: Anubis66

  5.1.2007 23:34 #20

• Dela

  Quote:are you kiding me this is funny as heck
  
  how stupid do you have to be to play with electricty while wet man talk about stupid kid most kids have the common intelegence to not play with water near a electric outlet You can't even spell electricity or intelligence and you think it's funny that a 7 year old didn't realize what he was doing might actually kill him. Judging by those spelling mistakes and your general attitude I wouldn't peg you as an expert on the subject of the mentality of little children, or as an adult or a parent (I HOPE not, because you would not laugh if this happened to you).

  6.1.2007 01:10 #21

• janrocks

  If he was older I'd nominate this for the Darwin award. As it stands it's a tragic accident that could so easily have been avoided.
  The hotel are to blame in the final case.. All outlets should be fitted with RCD breakers for just this reason.
  
  Darwin winners 2006. People who have done us all a favour by removing themselves from the gene pool. (nothing to do with the story)
  
  
  MICHIGAN...
  In Detroit, a 41-year-old man got stuck and drowned in two feet of water after squeezing head first through an 18-inch-wide sewer grate to retrieve his car keys.
  
  
  CALIFORNIA...
  A 49-year-old San Francisco stockbroker, who "totally zoned when he ran," -- accidentally jogged off a 100-foot-high cliff on his daily run.
  
  
  NORTH CAROLINA...
  Buxton, NC: A man died on a beach when an 8-foot-deep hole he had dug into the sand caved in as he sat inside it. Beach-goers said Daniel Jones, 21, dug the hole for fun, or protection from the wind, and had been sitting in a beach chair at the bottom Thursday afternoon when it collapsed, burying him beneath 5 feet of sand.
  
  People on the beach on the outer banks, used their hands and shovels, trying to claw their way to Jones, a resident of Woodbridge, VA, but could not reach him. It took rescue workers using heavy equipment almost an hour to free him while about 200 people looked on. Jones was pronounced dead at a hospital.
  
  
  CALIFORNIA...
  Santiago Alvarado, 24, was killed in Lompoc, CA, as he fell face-first through the ceiling of a bicycle shop he was burglarizing. Death was caused when the long flashlight he had placed in his mouth(to keep his hands free) rammed into the base of his skull as he hit the floor.
  
  
  DELAWARE...
  Sylvester Briddell, Jr., 26, was killed in Selbyvill, Del, as he won a bet with friends who said he would not put a revolver loaded with four bullets into his mouth and pull the trigger.
  
  
  HONOURABLE MENTION:
  
  NEW JERSEY...
  Paul Stiller, 47, was hospitalized in Andover township, NJ, and his wife Bonnie was also injured, when a quarter-stick of dynamite blew up in their car. While driving around 2 AM, the bored couple lit the dynamite and tried to toss it out the window to see what would happen, but apparently failed to notice the window was closed.
  
  RUNNER UP:
  
  WASHINGTON...
  TACOMA, WA.........Kerry Bingham had been drinking with several friends when one of them said they knew a person who had bungee-jumped from the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in the middle of traffic. The conversation grew more heated and at least 10 men trooped along the walkway of the bridge at 4:30 AM.
  
  Upon arrival at the midpoint of the bridge they discovered that no one had brought a bungee rope. Bingham, who had continued drinking, volunteered and pointed out that a coil of lineman's cable lay nearby. One end of the cable was secured around Bingham's leg and the other end was tied to the bridge. His fall lasted 40 feet before the cable tightened and tore his foot off at the ankle. He miraculously survived his fall into the icy river water and was rescued by two nearby fishermen. "All I can say" said Bingham, "is that God was watching out for me on that night. There's just no other explanation for it."
  
  Bingham's foot was never located.
  
  AND THE WINNER: FROM G-E-R-M-A-N-Y is....
  Overzealous zookeeper Friedrich Riesfeldt (Paderborn, Germany) fed his constipated elephant Stefan 22 doses of animal laxative and more than a bushel of berries, figs and prunes before the plugged-up pachyderm finally let it fly, and suffocated the keeper under 200 pounds of poop!
  
  Investigators say ill-fated Friedrich, 46, was attempting to give the ailing elephant an olive oil enema when the relieved beast unloaded on him. "The sheer force of the elephant's unexpected defecation knocked Mr. Riesfeldt to the ground, where he struck his head on a rock and lay unconscious as the elephant continued to evacuate his bowels on top of him" said flabbergasted Paderborn police detective Erik Dern. "With no one there to help him, he lay under all that dung for at least an hour before a watchman came along, and during that time he suffocated."
  

  
  

  6.1.2007 03:05 #22

• sammorris

  The darwin awards are humourous (although they probably shouldn't be) because people are mindlessly stupid when they know better. The difference here is that a 7 year old child probably won't know better. I think it's outrageous that people can claim that since they were barely able to speak they knew all about electrical safety and always considered it whenever they went near a plug socket.

  6.1.2007 04:35 #23

• Dela

  Quote:The darwin awards are humourous (although they probably shouldn't be) because people are mindlessly stupid when they know better. The difference here is that a 7 year old child probably won't know better. I think it's outrageous that people can claim that since they were barely able to speak they knew all about electrical safety and always considered it whenever they went near a plug socket.100% agreed...

  6.1.2007 05:14 #24

• BobbyBlu

  Thats real sad but not a laughable matter.It could happen to anyone child.

  6.1.2007 19:23 #25

• Dragan123

  It is definitely a shame that the boy died, granted he should have been taught about the dangers of water and electricity. But that is not what I am shocked about, the heading in the UK papers said "Killed by Game Boy," but that is clearly not what happened according to the police report of the incident. The power outlet's reaction to the water on the boy is what killed him, not the Game Boy.
  
  It is things like this that people like, Jack Thompson that vehemently claims that games are a danger to our youth, that gives the video games industry a bad name. The Game Boy was not the cause of this accident, the power surge from the power outlet is the culprit here.

  6.1.2007 20:32 #26

• ianburley

  This was no accident, this was a preventable incident.
  
  It would appear most likely that a metal surface associated with the socket outlet may have become live and when the boy made contact with it he received a fatal electric shock.
  
  In the UK all such accessories should be connected to the earth terminal so that if a fault occurs and a live conductors comes in to contact with accessible metal parts a fuse or mcb will operate (British Standard 7671:2001 is a bible for electricians). Sadly, not all countries operate to such standards.
  
  If the former is the case, then poor installation practice or maintenance would appear to be to blame.
  
  Water and electricity do not mix well. water is a poor conductor of electricity but when spread over the skin extends the surface area of contact with electrical terminals making it much easier for electricity to enter the body. As little as 0.05 amps can cause a fatal shock. A typical 2200 watt kettle takes about 10 amps (in the UK).
  
  The internet is jam packed full of idiots who expect young children to be aware of these risks. Rubbish - it is the responsibility of the hotel or building owner to ensure that equipment is in a safe condition. My condolences go to the family. I would like to say that in the Uk we don't have such incidents but we do. UK government figures show that a few tens of people die in their homes in similar circumstances each year. In the work place, about 10 people die each year from electric shock.

  7.1.2007 03:13 #27

• groony

  This was a tragic ACCIDENT; however one the respondents said water electrocuted the child. Water is not a conductor of electricity. The truith is , he was electrocuted because of the salt in his body as neither is a conductor however they are together.

  7.1.2007 03:25 #28

• tak_em_ez

  Ok let's think about this for a second. Alot of you have different ideas and all of them could be right in a way. I do agree with all of the ones that say it was just a tragic accident. But put yourself in the boys shoes for a minute, maybe the boy did know all about water and electricity and what it does when you put them both together. But at the age of 7, the only thing that was probably on his mind (at that moment in time) was playing a game that ment alot to him, which their is nothing in the world wrong with that. and just forgot about the other detail. (ever heard the old saying, one track mind) Most kids that age only think about one thing at a time until they get older.
  
  And as far as the parents, I wouldn't put the blame on them because I wasn't their. Anything could have happened. For all we know the boys parent could have been in the pool with him, because who would let their 7 year old go to the hotel pool by themself, and when they got back in the room thought it was safe for them to step in the bathroom for a minute and dry off and change, and the boy could have just got the urge to play a game while he was waiting on the parent to come out. And once the game idea was in his head, that was probably all that was on his mind.
  
  And the headline, I do agree with dragan123, they shouldn't have put game boy in it. They could have just left it as seven year old killed in tragic accident. But look who we are talking about (the media) they will do what ever it takes to get publiscity and that is all it is to them, they probally don't even care. Just something to boost the ratings. But it is a very sad and tragic accident, I don't know what i would do if i lost my child by something like this, beause it does have the appearance of being prevented. But who's to say wether it was or not if you wasn't their and you don't know exactly how it happened.

  7.1.2007 05:14 #29

• Joshua30

  I do feel sorry for that kid.

  7.1.2007 09:00 #30

• Joshua30

  I do feel sorry for that kid.

  7.1.2007 09:00 #31

• millfield

  I,m really sorry about the loss of this child, and i do hurt for them as i have children myself. i,m also an electrician and from time to time get that "shock" myself. don,t blame the parents or the child, it happens, as in my case. life take the innocent and leaves the scum to rob again (where,s god when needed,nowhere !! )rest in peace lad.

  7.1.2007 09:57 #32

• barcia99

  this is tragic and peace be with the parents who are suffering through this. the thought that a 6 or 7 year old should know better is foolish, maybe some should read eriksons stages of life. this will give some a better insight on what children do at what ages.

  7.1.2007 10:03 #33

• diableria

  right on

  31.5.2007 09:20 #34

• cessium

  So far everyone is either blaming the parents or the kid for his electrocution. True, kids should be taught to keep wet hands away from electricity. However, there is a reason why accidents like these don't occur very often in the United States and that is because building codes required ground fault circuit interrupters. A GFCI kills the outlet within milliseconds of a current drop and prevents electrocution death.
  
  Older homes in the US don't necessarily have GFCI and when I bought my home from 1945, the first thing I did was have an electrician install the devices in the kitchen and bathroom, as these are high-risk areas given their proximity to water.

  20.7.2007 11:04 #35