‘We’re lucky to have our house’: Faulty e-bike battery explodes in Lincoln garage

LINCOLN, Neb. (KLKN) – Darryn and Lydia Yakel put 2,000 miles on their E-bikes during the past two years, but now they don’t know if they’ll ever ride again.

The Yakel’s woke up after hearing two explosions from their garage in the Trendwood neighborhood on Saturday morning.

Darryn checked it out and realized the lithium battery in the e-bike had exploded and burst into flames.

“We heard a huge explosion,” Lydia said. “We thought someone had driven a truck through our garage doors, like it was really loud.”

Darryn tried to stop the flames with a fire extinguisher, but that wasn’t enough.

After throwing water on the fire to extinguish it, they called the Lincoln Fire Department’s non-emergency number.

LFR sent two units at the home, along with a fire inspector to check out the damage.

“Our heater, maybe our fridge, our tv won’t work anymore because they won’t be able to clean them the right way, so we’ll have to count those as loss,” said Lydia.

The inspector told her she’ll have to repaint the walls and clean out the garage because of the toxic chemicals.

He said the lithium battery that was charging overnight was faulty.

Battery defects are possible if there’s physical damage or if they overheat. It’s not clear what led to the faulty battery in this case.

Lydia said Darryn is in recovery.

“He got burns on the bottom of his foot,” she said, “Just running around through the very hot copper and on pieces of exploded battery everywhere, and he was walking all over it.”

She said they’re lucky to have their house.