iPhone 5s battery expanded

Wow, this just happened out of the blue this morning, and I'm very surprised it did, because my phone was working perfectly just beforehand...

I was at my favorite coffee shop, picking up my usual coffee order. I used my iPhone 5s to get my usual Yelp Check-in $1 off coupon. Then I put the phone back in my purse, in the same outside pocket I always do that's made for this purpose, and headed home.

On my way back to my house (in my car), I saw the screen had changed to the white background with the grey Apple logo. I only noticed it because my phone sticks up a little out of the phone pocket and the light from the changing screen flickered off and on and caught the corner of my eye in my peripheral vision. I thought this behavior on my phone was very odd, as I hadn't done anything to it, such as turning it off and on again. As I was driving only 2 more miles back to my house, I didn't want to stop and look at it until I got home.

At home, I noticed the screen was flashing off and on repeatedly every few seconds, as though it was going through an update or something, which it shouldn't be, since I hadn't told it to do the new update yet. Also, the Otter Box Defender case it's lived in since Day 1 appeared to be pushing up on the left middle side of the phone. I took the phone out of the case and that's when I saw the edge of my iPhone was pushing upwards, which caused the inner plastic Otter Box case to crack and break too. I was stumped, had no idea what was going on here. So, I did a web search and found the problem is caused by the Li-ion battery expanding and popping up that side of the phone. I can't use the phone now (my only phone, so this is a good reason to get a landline as a back up, I suppose). In fact, I was now afraid it might catch fire, so I put it on my concrete driveway, away from anything, in case it explodes.

Now what do I do?

The battery replacement program wasn't extended backwards to include iPhone 5 or 5s, even though many of us have had the exact same issues everyone else was having!