Sony PSP sends kid to hospital with leg burns -- that'll teach him to play it in school

A Michigan Middle School student learned the hard way about bringing video games to school when his PSP battery overheated in his pocket during band practice, sending him to the hospital with leg burns. Apparently students are allowed to bring the systems to school as long as they don't play them during school hours -- a policy which we're sure the children follow to the letter. There's no word from Sony on the incident yet, or whether the kid was using a shady third party battery inside the system.

[Thanks, Robin W; image courtesy of Jakob L]

[nonamo @ Feb 6th 2008 6:34PM]

OWN3D

[josh @ Feb 6th 2008 7:05PM]

PSPwned.

[Rae @ Feb 6th 2008 7:09PM]

....no

[Ellianth @ Feb 6th 2008 7:12PM]

Omg.. the one time "Boom!" can be used in context, no one writes it?

[goes to the centre of the room and clears his throat] [gestures for everyones attention]

BOOM!

That is all :).

[Nathan @ Feb 6th 2008 7:20PM]

I wonder if the machine they used to monitor his vitals after he was admited to the hospital for treatment can play Doom.

[mushrooshi @ Feb 6th 2008 7:24PM]

I wonder if your face can play Doom.

[Nathan @ Feb 6th 2008 7:30PM]

I wonder if your face can detect sarcasm?

[Mile @ Feb 6th 2008 8:28PM]

I wonder if your sarcasm has a face!

[Paris @ Feb 6th 2008 8:30PM]

I wonder why everyone is wondering.

[kev @ Feb 6th 2008 9:32PM]

Nice pic of that broken PSP on Houston St in Soho.

[Matt O @ Feb 6th 2008 10:00PM]

I wonder, wonder, wonder, wonder, who! who wrote the book of love...

[Goatee Man @ Feb 6th 2008 10:21PM]

Dang, you walked right into that one. [/Scrubs reference]

[Sime @ Feb 6th 2008 6:38PM]

why the hell would u bring a psp to school if u couldnt even use it?

[Rae @ Feb 6th 2008 6:47PM]

you really think kids listen??

mp3 players were banned in my high school but i still listened to my ipod everyday

[Nathan @ Feb 6th 2008 7:22PM]

Why do Linux fanboys carry a condom in their wallet when they won't get to use them?

[mushrooshi @ Feb 6th 2008 7:25PM]

Because they give them to idiots who will.

[Nathan @ Feb 6th 2008 7:29PM]

People who practice safer sex are idiots? Surely you jest!

[ethana2 @ Feb 7th 2008 2:58AM]

Just call it good security policy. We prefer to avoid nasty things like viruses, spyware, and STD's..

Of course, I plan on waiting 'till marriage, but you know, some people don't share my value system of course.
~Software is like Sex. It's best when it's Free. -Linus Torvalds

[stewis @ Feb 7th 2008 8:20AM]

I use linux and condoms so i dont get viruses....

[Tim @ Feb 6th 2008 6:38PM]

What does that picture have to do with the post?

Other than it's a PSP...

[Lance @ Feb 6th 2008 6:41PM]

It's malfunctioning?

[ethana2 @ Feb 7th 2008 2:56AM]

Well yeah, it has Windows on it. Besides that, it looks perfectly functional..
Probably need to hunt down and spear a graphics card driver for it or something.

[Galley @ Feb 6th 2008 6:40PM]

"This one time, at band practice..."

[Lance @ Feb 6th 2008 6:41PM]

LOL, nice

[yoyodude64 @ Feb 6th 2008 6:47PM]

this one time...at band camp...
good one Galley. i liked it

[Flashpoint @ Feb 6th 2008 6:50PM]

If this happens to be one of those 3rd party batteries, Sony couldn't give a shit. If it is a Sony, then they just lost a couple million dollars settling out of court.

Thing is, those 3rd party batteries are usually tempting to buy. My battery (Datel) had a 4 GB HDD built into it.

[Mike D @ Feb 6th 2008 7:03PM]

isn't sony the one behind the design for exploding batteries?

[Ally @ Feb 6th 2008 9:24PM]

i dont think they explode by design :/

i hope not :|

[Tim @ Feb 6th 2008 7:10PM]

I live in Michigan and saw some pics on the news... One half of the back was totally burned up and it burned a hole straight through his pockets. Definitely not overheating, something major wrong happened.

[Flashpoint @ Feb 6th 2008 7:39PM]

It wasn't overheating...it was an exothermic reaction caused by the battery acid after it burst out of the battery.

[XGM @ Feb 6th 2008 7:42PM]

WTF u mean they ban PSP's and even at some schools iPods !? I had teachers encourage us to bring mp3 players in class for when we worked as long as the volume was reasonable. And others dont even mind when my freind takes out his PSP and we game at Worms and such on it.

[Jarhead2012 @ Feb 6th 2008 8:06PM]

Do you go to a private school? No public school I've ever been to has allowed the use of mp3 players or video game handhelds in class. At my school there was a sub that let us listen to our iPods when we were finished with our work. He got fired. Anyways, I don't know where this was. I live in the Flint area of Michigan, but I haven't heard anything about this up until now.

[ace_spades @ Feb 6th 2008 8:10PM]

one of ours subs at school lets us (private school btw)
I never bring it anyway though

[Jacqueline @ Feb 6th 2008 9:07PM]

I guess every school is different. My daughter goes to Catholic school and other than playing a video game/using mp3 player/etc...on the bus, bringing such things to school are prohibited, along with cellphones, natch. In school, gadgets are not to leave your backpack.

[atomicthumbs @ Feb 6th 2008 10:22PM]

Judging by your spelling, you should have been paying attention instead of listening to you iPod.

[XGM @ Feb 6th 2008 10:52PM]

Public school but I do live in Ontario (Canada for those who dunno :P). Now there are some who don't want us to use them at all, but all my teachers let us use them when we work. Heck we even get to play Counter-Strike 1.6, Battlefield 1942 (any game for that matter) in our programming class over LAN every two weeks.

To atomicthumbs, this is the internet and not an essay... Also the fact that english is a second language to me.

[joshhunt @ Feb 7th 2008 1:26AM]

Im in a public school and i take my touch to school and listen to it, and sometimes play it when im bored in class. Heck, today my computer teacher gave me the WPA passcode to the wireless networks around the school.

My school tends to have a DFU aproach: Dont Fuck Up. Dont leave it around for it to get stolen, dont listen to it when teachers are talking to you etc...

I know plenty of people in Private schools and they can take their PSP's iPods or what ever.

[Blaktornado @ Feb 7th 2008 2:40PM]

My Art teachers used to allow us to listen to MP3 players because it helps creativity and concentration... but I had no MP3 player back then :(

Still, some schools allow it...

My school has currently gone all fascist about iPods and cell phones (which is ridiculous (the cell phones) because some kids need to ring or text parents without having to go through school t do it). Thankfully, most of the the teachers don't take action if they see you with that sort of stuff... but you get the one or two... ugh... kill joys.

[Neebs @ Feb 6th 2008 9:32PM]

It was a feature. Keeping him out of trouble.

[JAmerican @ Feb 6th 2008 10:22PM]

PSP runs on Windows 2000. LOL!

[ethana2 @ Feb 7th 2008 3:02AM]

runs on FYI.

And microsoft won't be touching the powerful, sleek desktop system I call the PS3 any time soon. I may just buy one just for that.
..you know, once they work out using the vRAM for extending primary RAM. I like my LiveCD's, and 256MB kind of puts.. well, there is xfce..

[cp @ Feb 6th 2008 11:22PM]

you think the kid would of been smart enough to take it out of his pocket.

[sevendegrees @ Feb 7th 2008 12:13AM]

if there's 3rd party battery or custom firmware the kids f*cked. end of story.

but still... ow it burns...[takes psp out of pocket]... leg fine... end of story

[Paulmichael @ Feb 7th 2008 12:45AM]

I'm guessing third-party battery or something. PSPs never get much more than lukewarm, right? I've had two and they stayed cool even when running an emulator at 333 MHz for a couple of hours...

[caljessup @ Feb 7th 2008 1:19AM]

Is that tingling, burning feeling in my pants part of becoming a man? No? Oh, then my leg is on fire!

[sitruc @ Feb 7th 2008 1:49AM]

Back in my high school days, I randomly had some batteries and change in my pocket one day and nearly burnt myself. People in the physics class thought I was crazy when I was throwing stuff out of my pocket and forced them to feel the batteries that were burning hot. They still thought I was crazy after that, but at least they knew the batteries actually did somehow align perfectly to become heated.

[Joe Anstine @ Feb 7th 2008 2:01AM]

gotta be a third party battery

[aleks @ Feb 7th 2008 3:53AM]

Oh, oh, does that ever happen with Nintendo DS'? Is there anyway to encourage it to happen with Nintendo DS'?

A teacher.

[Dimon @ Feb 13th 2008 11:27PM]

Uh...no one really wants to encourage the destruction of their own property unless they are into pyrotechnics of some sort (fireworks, special FX).

Also, the thing could have overheated cause of poor or no airflow being in his pants. The kid is an idiot for leaving it completely on and in his pants. They have save features for reasons.

[ZeroCorpse @ Feb 7th 2008 1:18PM]

Is it wrong that this thread is giving me more entertainment value than an actual PSP could?