My GOD!! Most importantly I'm glad to hear your wife and you are intact if a bit rattled by this terrible incident, no injuries. I really hope you got changed the air in that room fast and didnt breathe any of that stuff any more than what was unavoidable. Also, HANDLE EVERYTHING WITH RUBBER GLOVES. Wash hands, face, arms,. any exposed skin with lots of water. Plastic bag the battery remnants. Send it to Kevin at Battery Station. Throw the tshirt it landed on away. Dont try cleaning it, just toss it.
I had a Battery Station CR123 pair explode on me last Thursday and I got really sick (poisoned) from the smoke and wet charred crud from the batteries, handling with bare hands and not washing up thoroughly. I didnt take the warnings seriously. You know warning labels, they all sound like the end of the world, they have to, to insure the manufacturers are covered. I never expected to be puking my guts out 12 hours after, which stayed for 2 days. Skin rash all over my whole body, blood test found liver enzymes off the charts, erratic heartbeat, burning sensation in my throat and on my tongue. In my case it was mostly hydrofluoric acid vapor that has a significant delayed onset. It takes a while for the flourine to break off the acid in the body and free radical fluorine attacks many delicate chemical conversion processes in the body. For a burn as little as 2 percent of body surface area, HF can be lethal, shutting down the heart and lungs long after ingestion, no warning, no picnic!
Thank God you had no direct injuries, I just hope you breathed an absolute minimum amount of the smoke and didnt handle the crud with bare hands. Basically, treat every surface or object the exploded battery touched like it was incredibly toxic, it does not hurt to go way overboard in this respect. Thats the most important thing I can offer you is that advice.
Oh, Kevin (Batterystation).... Now I really feel terrible for this fellow. He took my accident so personally, I sensed it was in a way worse for him than me, since he was flooded with remorse that his product was involved. Its every seller's nightmare to have a product that inadvertently brings harm to the buyer(s). I think of airline company employees that get the detestable job of informing family members of passengers in the event of a serious crash. I'll bet they wish more than anything they could "un-do" the tragedy so as not to traumatize the families. Thats far more serious in nature than whats tearing Kevin up. But maybe you see my point. Its way late and I'm dozing off in front of my computer. I slept in the afternoon so now its insomnia theatre. Im slappy tired now but I just found this thread and cannot believe the coincidence. I can NOT believe THIS. I wish it were any other brand of battery for Kev's sake. One of the big concluding themes from my "explosion thread" is that real scrutiny should be targeted at multi-cell arrangements and insuring balance of charge and age for those lights that use more than 1 cell is critical for safety. There were a lot of folks wondering about single cell safety. Even I was nodding my head at the notion of "a one cell light would not have done this....". Now this incident has opened up a commercial kitchen size can of worms. Another primary cell, albeit lithium chemistry, but the ever so trustworthy double A cell size. All those years of standard alkaline cell sizing.... in my mind a double A battery is as benign as it gets. Not anymore.
I find this cell phone battery charger a bit wonky if you ask me. Your cell phone is very likely a LiIon battery, which is crucial to have a proper charging regimen with the right equipment. i.e. factory charger. sounds like a nifty idea. but id bet a zillion dollars if you wrote a letter to the manufacturer of the cell phone and asked if they would approve of the use of your AA charger gizmo to charge their phone, the response would be "NO WAY NO HOW NOT NOW NOT EVER we cannot recommend anything beyond what has been approved and tested for use with the product by us and Underwriters Laboratories". Since LiIon batteries are so inherently dangerous when improperly charged, companies have no choice but to pay a ton of money for safety checking and a lot of times use proprietary pack shapes and weirdo connectors specifically so that you cant use a Nokia cigarette lighter plug slash rapid charger to charge up your Motorola phone. It drove me crazy at first, why the flipflop cant everyone agree on one standard plug size, with a fixed number of terminals and use that connector type for every rechargeable device. Worst of all laptops. Nineteen point five volt power supply with bizarro connector so your Dell Inspiron can only be charged and run with your factory issue Dell Inspiron power brick. After getting over the aggravation of the lack of a common standard, I realized it was because of lithium battery liability concerns. OTOH, gasoline is extremely dangerous, why not have different gas filler hole shapes for different model cars? OK now I know im slap happy tired and barely making any more sense. SO Ill sign off here... wishing you well. Please contact Kevin at BS about this and save the battery, but BAG IT!!!
OMG, poor Kevin! I think he's going to check himself in to a hospital soon. This is going to give the poor fellow a heart attack with a huge stomach ulcer to follow. He's not getting any rest, as I envision him burning the midnight oil testing every cell in sight and running test to destruction experiments. When he hears of this.... my sympathies Kev!!