MEDINA, Ohio — No parent would ever second guess handing over a toy phone to their little one — especially one that’s made for children ages 6 months and older. But one mother is warning parents to pay close attention to one toy in particular.
Tonya Beach-Fuller and her husband Bill have two daughters, Jordyn, 4, and Addy, 2. Her daughters have an assortment of toys to choose from, and today it was the Friendly Flip Phone made by Fisher Price.
Beach-Fuller says she was standing at the kitchen sink when she smelled something burning in the kitchen. She couldn’t locate the source of the smell, until she said her daughter’s toy phone exploded while sitting on a shelf nearby.
“The toy just exploded and it flew across the room,” she said. “It was smoking and hot. So I needed to get it out of the house right away. And I have no idea what happened to it.”
Fortunately, her daughter was finished playing with the toy and wasn’t holding it at the time.
“I was thankful that nothing terrible happened to my children. That Addy didn’t have it in her mouth, or in her hand,” she said.
Beach-Fuller says the toy phone has been in the home for nearly two years. It was a Christmas gift in 2012. And when she contacted Fisher Price about the incident, they requested she send the phone back to them.
“They wanted to know how much we paid for it. And they were willing to reimburse me for the product if I would send it to them,” she said.
But this concerned parent wasn’t eager to give the phone up just yet. She contacted the Consumer Product Safety Commission to see what they have to say before she gives up possession of the phone — insisting that there should be a full investigation to make sure no other families are in danger. A meeting with a CPSC investigator is scheduled for later this week.
Channel 3 News contacted Fisher Price about the alleged exploding phone. They released a statement that reads:
We were contacted by Tonya Beach-Fuller of Medina, OH on November 3, 2014. An agent in our Contact Center spoke with Ms. Beach-Fuller, logged the call and asked Ms. Beach-Fuller to return product to us for evaluation. We mailed the consumer a pre-paid shipping return label, but have not received the product to date.
No other calls have been received on this product. We have sold over 2.5 million of the phones since 2007.
It’s our product integrity team’s experience that button cell batteries, like the alkaline button cells in the flip phone, do not have a substantial amount of potential energy, therefore the potential for a thermal event is remote. We fully encourage the consumer to send the product back for a full analysis as is our process. We take great pride in our rigorous testing procedures that often exceed worldwide safety standards.
Fisher Price still offers the product for purchase on its website. Tonya Beach-Fuller hopes that if the product is indeed flawed, the company will issue a recall.
“I’m hoping that if this is a bad product and there’s something wrong that they’ll make it right,” she said. “And take it away from the homes that it’s in already.”