Nicholasville man injured by replacement Samsung phone

Around 4:00a.m. Tuesday, Michael Klering says he and his wife woke up to a hissing sound in their bedroom.

“I was scared to death for a minute,” Klering said.

Klering says when he opened his eyes, he saw his bedroom was filled with smoke.

“The whole room just covered in smoke, smells awful. I look over and my phone is on fire,” Klering said.

Klering said he had only had his replacement Samsung Galaxy Note 7 for a little more than a week before it caught fire.

“The phone is supposed to be the replacement, so you would have thought it would be safe. It wasn’t plugged in. It wasn’t anything, it was just sitting there,” Klering said.

Later in the day Tuesday, Klering said he started feeling sick, so he went to the Emergency Room.

“I was vomiting black so it was very scary. It was a lot of black stuff and it didn’t look right,” Klering said.

Klering provided WKYT with his hospital records that stated he was diagnosed with acute bronchitis. A Nicholasville Fire Department report was also taken after the hospital called the fire department to notify them that Klering suffered from smoke inhalation.

After an alleged replacement Samsung Galaxy Note 7 on a Southwest airplane at the Louisville airport earlier this week, Samsung released a statement to TIME:

“Until we are able to retrieve the device, we cannot confirm that this incident involves the new Note 7. We are working with the authorities and Southwest now to recover the device and confirm the cause. Once we have examined the device we will have more information to share.”

Klering says Samsung also wanted possession of his device but he refused to give it up. Klering says the company did pay for him to have it x-rayed.

Klering says he felt Samsung was helping him, until he got a text message from a Samsung representative that was not intended to go to him.

That message read:

Just now got this. I can try and slow him down if we think it will matter, or we just let him do what he keeps threatening to do and see if he does it

"It made me think you know they're not taking this serious enough and it's time to move on," Klering said.

So now Klering says he is seeking legal help. And, he says he just wants to get this information out to the public, so it doesn't happen to someone else.

"They're in kid’s pockets, people's cars, all kinds of things. We saw with the first ones. Samsung needs to do something to get these off the market,” Klering said.

Samsung sent this response to WKYT, ""We want to reassure our customers that we take every report seriously and we are engaged with Mr. Klering to ensure we are doing everything we can for him. Customer safety remains our highest priority as we are investigating the matter."