A couple lost their 25 year old son, Arun Gopal Ratnam, in a fire at home on June 4th. The son who had graduated with MBA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison two weeks earlier had come home for a while.
He had lunch with his dad at home and decided to go back to clean up his hostel room. His father told him to wait, to meet his mother, before he went back for a few days. Arun worked on his laptop for a while and then decided to take a nap while waiting for his mom to come back home from work.
Sometime later their neighbours called 911 when they saw black smoke coming out of the house. Unfortunately, 25 year old Arun died in the three year old house. It took several days of investigation to find out the cause of the fire. It was determined that the fire was caused by the laptop resting on the bed.
When the laptop was on the bed the cooling fan did not get the air to cool the computer and that is what caused the fire. He did not even wake up to get out of the bed because he died of breathing in carbon monoxide.
The reason I am writing this to all of you is that many of us and also our sons & daughters use the laptop while in bed. Let us all decide and make it a practice not to do that. The risk is real. Let us make it a rule not to use the laptop on bed or with blankets and pillows around.
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