1.10.2025
An Irish woman has died while charging her phone in a bathtub.
Ann-Marie O’Gorman,46, from Shanliss Avenue, Santry, Co Dublin, was electrocuted while holding the charging phone an inquest into her death has revealed. Her husband Joe O’Gorman found her unresponsive in their home; she was later pronounced dead at the Beamount hospital.
State Pathologist Heidi Okkers told Dubin District Coroner’s Court that Mrs O’Gorman had electrocution-type burns to her chest and left arm and attributed the cause of death as electrocution by a charging cable and phone while in a bath.
According to Daily Mail reports Mr O’Gorman gave evidence that he had left the house at around 6.40pm to drop their youngest daughter, Megan, at a party. He told coroner Crona Gallagher that he had spoken to his wife on the phone at around 7.58pm while driving home.
Mr O’Gorman said that when he got home he went into the bathroom, where he found his unresponsive wife lying on her side.
He noticed her iPhone and a cable in the bath, which he picked up and threw in the sink.
Mr O’Gorman described how he got a small electric shock as he lifted his wife out of the bath before calling his eldest daughter to call emergency services.
The grief-stricken husband also told the inquest that he wanted to raise awareness over the dangers of charging mobile phones in bathrooms.
‘The only thing you hear about is how these phones are great in up to six feet of water. It gives people the idea that you can have your phone near water’, Mr O’Gorman said.
‘There should be warnings that this is dangerous.
‘There’s nothing being done about this whatsoever by any provider to say this is a hazard you could die from. That is all that people have to know’, he added.
No phones in the bathtup, while charging