Vancouver widow sues over e-bike battery fire that killed husband

Kellyann Sharples lost her husband Tim Lilley in an e-bike battery fire in 2022. (Helping Kelly after a devastating fire/GoFundMe)

A Vancouver woman is suing an e-bike manufacturer and a battery servicing company over a terrifying 2022 fire that killed her husband.

Kellyann Sharples and her husband, Tim Lilley, lived together in a downtown apartment and used multiple electric vehicles for transportation, according to the lawsuit filed last month in the BC Supreme Court.

On the night of January 30, 2022, Lilley returned home on his e-bike and took the battery upstairs, plugging it in to charge under the living room table so it would be ready to use the next morning. It was next to several other batteries under the table, which were sitting there and not charging.

As the couple slept, the battery finished charging. But it began to overcharge and overheat, according to the court documents.

A loud bang in the living room awoke the couple. Lilley yelled “fire” and told his wife to get out.

From there, the lawsuit says the fire grew rapidly.

“Jets of flaming gas venting from the tops of cells in the e-bike battery turned each into a tiny, unguided metal rocket,” the lawsuit says. “Ejected from the battery pack by the explosion of neighbouring cells or their own propulsion, these loose cells ricocheted around the room, igniting new fires and spreading the blaze rapidly and erratically.”

Both husband and wife were trapped, with Sharples in the bedroom and Lilley in the living room.

The fire burned with such intensity that it caused a “flashover — a condition in which every exposed, flammable surface in a room ignites simultaneously,” the lawsuit says.

Sharples called her husband in the living room but heard no response. She tried to crawl toward him but the heat, thick smoke, and flaming projectiles held her back — striking her legs and burning her.

She escaped by breaking her bedroom window and climbing across an exposed ledge four storeys above the ground. She reached safety when she climbed onto her neighbour’s balcony.

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A GoFundMe organized for Sharples at the time said the fire happened at 1255 Pendroll Street in the West End early in the morning of January 31. Sharples and Lilley managed the building together.

In the GoFundMe, Sharples shared a letter detailing her love for her husband.

“From the first moment Tim and I met we were basically inseparable,” Sharples wrote. “We have spent almost six wonderful years together. Every New Year’s day Tim would do the polar bear swim. I thought he was nuts but he loved it. Tim was the friend that everyone would call if they needed help He was always helping someone. He is such a kind and very patent man and always had a kind word to say about everyone.”

Now, Sharples is suing the e-bike manufacturer Daymak Inc., and Royer Batteries Corporation, which serviced several of the couple’s batteries about a week before the fire.

Sharples’ counsel argues the battery didn’t have a mechanism to detect overcharging or overheating, which put the couple at risk. It argues both companies had a duty of care to customers to maintain their safety as they charged and cared for their e-bikes.

The lawsuit is now before the court.

Vancouver Fire Rescue Services issued warnings to the public in the months after Lilley’s death, saying six Vancouverites died from lithium-ion battery fires in the first six months of 2022. Battery fires became the number one cause of fire deaths in Vancouver.

Firefighters cautioned people against using after-market charges for lithium-ion batteries and advised them not to charge batteries in the bedroom. Ideally, charging should be done outside the home entirely.

“If you overcharge them or you charge them incorrectly, you can heat them up, and it causes an internal runaway effect that … causes a subsequent fire and explosion,” captain of public information with VFRS Matthew Trudeau told Daily Hive in a 2022 interview.