MADISON COUNTY, Ill (KMOV / CNN) – An extremely popular gift over the last few years nearly caused a fire on Christmas Eve for a Madison County family.
Celeste Robinson and her husband bought As-Seen-On-TV UFO drones for their kids and plugged them in Christmas Eve so they could use them first thing in the morning.
The drones were hand held and specifically made for kids.
“We went ahead and put them on the charger, went down to go to sleep and realized there was another gift I forgot to wrap,” Robinson said.
That's when she said her husband heard a strange hissing noise. They walked to the counter to find the drones hot to the touch.
“We unplugged them and all of a sudden it just started sparking like a firework, just shooting up,” she said.
Panicked, Robinson threw the malfunctioning drone on the floor after it burst into flames in her hand. It burned the carpet and pieces of metal stuck to the floor.
According to the instructions, the drone takes 40 minutes to become fully charged. Robinson said they were only plugged in for a half hour.
Robinson says the scare didn't put a damper on their Christmas morning. But knows it could've ended a much different way.
“We had it sitting on the counter so if that spark would have gone up it would have hit the cabinet and flamed everything else,” she said. “We were so blessed that he heard the noise and he checked it out because we would have been asleep, it could have been our house, it could have been our lives.”
News 4 reached out to the manufacturer to find out what safety improvements are being made.
Right now, we’re still waiting to hear back.