Oklahoma teen Rayce Ogdahl is lucky to be alive after his religious crucifix electrocuted him like a “hot coil,” leaving his entire neck encircled in scars.
“He said this all happened within a matter of seconds and he visibly saw sparks coming from his neck,” The boy’s relieved mother Danielle Davis, 38, told Kennedy News of the “eye-opening” freak accident. “He told me his whole body hurt and he thought he was going to die.”
The Oklahoman said she had been asleep at the family home in Yukon for “around an hour” when they “heard a noise then heard yelling” coming from her 16-year-old son’s room next door.
Initially thinking that Ogdahl was getting frustrated over video games, the mother-of-six realized that wasn’t the case after she heard her son call her in a panic.
“I heard him shout ‘mom’ and my son was standing in the hallway,” Davis described. “He said ‘I’ve been electrocuted. It was my necklace.’”
That’s when the stay-at-home mom saw a ring of deep scorch marks around his neck. He’d been burned so badly the mark looked exactly like his jewerly.
The distraught mother said the smell was “awful.” “The whole house smelled like burnt hair and skins and electrical burns,” recalled Davis, who subsequently dialed an ambulance.
While waiting for emergency services to arrive, Ogdahl described what had transpired.
“He explained to us that he was in bed, rolled over to get comfortable when he heard something fall off the bed,” his guardian recounted. “He said he wanted to make sure his phone was still charging so his alarm would go off for school the next day.”
Unfortunately, when he leaned out of bed to inspect it, the cross necklace around his neck touched the exposed prongs from the plug in an extension cord, essentially turning his jewelry into a high-voltage shock collar.
Ogdahl said that he saw sparks from his neck in a matter of seconds, after which his body started to hurt all over. “He said he was completely conscious through the whole thing and was aware he was being electrocuted,” said Davis. “Because everything was metal, it made a complete circuit around his neck.”
She added, “It was amazing he was still conscious and could still alert us.”
Along with the “significant mark” on his neck,” the youngster also had burns on his hands from trying to rip off the impromptu live wire, which was so hot that it “welded part of his chain to the charger.”
The cross pendant, meanwhile, melted into his mattress, leaving a three-inch-deep hole in it like acid.
Ogdahl was subsequently rushed to the hospital, where doctors said he had endured “enough amps to kill him,” prompting them to monitor his heart over the next few days.
“He could’ve easily died that night,” said his relieved mother.
Ogdahl unfortunately was far from unscathed, however. He suffered from second, third and fourth-degree burns along with significant scars extending from his chin to his collarbone.
Due to the extensive scarring, doctors proposed giving him skin grafts, but the patient says he doesn’t want to do that unless “medically necessary,” per his parent.
Davis says she’s just “grateful he’s ok” as he could’ve “easily died that night.”
In light of the horrific saga, she put out a PSA warning people about the perils of leaving electronic devices on one’s bed.
“When it comes to your phone, there’s not a text message or notification that is important enough to have your phone on your bed,” she said. “Anything can happen and Rayce is proof of that. Pay attention to your cords and I would recommend to anybody don’t use extension cords at all.”
