Samsung smartphone nearly catches fire in Kalihi woman's hand

A Samsung Galaxy Note 7 smartphone. KIM HONG-JI / Reuters (Copyright by WSLS - All rights reserved)

By Elyssa Arevalo and Web Staff – (KHON) - A Kalihi woman says she wants answers after her Samsung smartphone nearly caught fire while it was in her hand.

The woman's phone was a replacement sent by Samsung due to a global recall for the same problem. The company recalled the Galaxy Note 7 model after customers said the battery overheated and caught fire in some cases.

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Samsung offered customers like Dee DeCasa replacement phones, but now there are reports of problems with the replacements themselves.

We spoke to DeCasa and her husband Mel on Sunday, and they said they feel the phones should be taken off the market for good.

DeCasa says she was checking emails and surfing the web on her phone when it sparked in her hands.

"Then, boom! The thing just popped and then smoke started coming out," she said.

DeCasa then ran to her husband and he says the phone looked like a small firecracker about to go off. "It definitely was sizzling," he said. "Smoke was shooting out, smoke was spraying out. It wasn't just coming off it, it was literally spraying out."

The couple suffered no injuries. They say the phone wasn't charging and it wasn't plugged into any power source.

We reached out to Samsung and they sent us this statement, saying:

We are engaged with the DeCasa family to ensure we are doing everything we can for them. Even though there are a limited number of reports, we want to reassure customers that we are taking every report seriously.

Just last week, a Southwest Airlines flight in Kentucky was evacuated due to a smoking Galaxy Note 7 phone that the owner said was also a replacement.

DeCasa said "personally, I know other people that have told me they're waiting for theirs and I just don't want that to happen to them.

"I love the phone, but will I buy another one? Heck, no," she said.

Wireless carrier AT&T has stopped exchanging the Samsung phones pending further investigation.

A representative from Samsung is flying out to Hawaii Monday to examine DeCasa's phone sometime this week. We'll be sure to let you know what happens.

Samsung Electronics says it is adjusting Galaxy Note 7 production to ensure safety following reports that replacements for the fire-prone phones were also overheating.

The South Korean tech giant said in a statement Monday that the production schedule for the disgraced smartphone has been changed "temporarily" to take more steps to ensure quality and safety matters.

Samsung fell short of confirming or denying earlier reports that it had halted production following multiple reports that newly released Galaxy Note 7 phones after its global recall emitted smoke or caught fire.

Earlier in the day, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported that Note 7 production was temporarily halted, following decisions by U.S. phone retailers AT&T and T-Mobile to stop giving new Note 7 replacement smartphones to consumers.