Even without a battery protection circuit, this wouldn't have happened if the device was properly vented. When li-ion cells go into thermal runaway, they produc

Even without a battery protection circuit, this wouldn't have happened if the device was properly vented. When li-ion cells go into thermal runaway, they produce large quantities of gas; that only causes an explosion if the device doesn't have sufficient venting to allow that gas to escape. If the mod had a couple of holes in the bottom, this chap would have escaped with nothing worse than minor burns to his hand. This isn't a story about electronic cigarettes, but a story about people doing astonishingly stupid things with batteries. An exploding mod is the end result of a long chain of extremely bad decisions.