An oxygen chamber explosion has killed a 5-year-old boy at a Detroit medical facility. His mother was injured during the terrifying incident on Friday and survived the explosion.
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The young boy from Royal Oak, Michigan was a patient at the clinic and was inside the hyperbaric chamber when the machine exploded. Since the mother was standing right next to the chamber, the detonation injured her arms, as Lt. Ben Hancock of Troy Police confirmed.
Oxygen Chamber Explodes, Kills 5-Year-Old Boy
Lieutenant Keith Young also mentioned how this was an odd scenario. "Our initial research shows that this is not a common incident, and the scene remains under active investigation," he said.
While the police don't yet know why the child was being treated or what it was for, we do know the benefits of the machine. According to Mayo Clinic, Hyperbaric oxygen therapy is used to increase the delivery of oxygen to the body. The chamber does this by giving the body pure oxygen in an enclosed space with air pressure that's higher than normal.
Although physicians most often use this therapy to treat decompression sickness. Things like rapid drops in water pressure while scuba diving or air pressure in air/space travel can cause this. It can also treat other conditions such as wounds or tissue disease, carbon monoxide poisoning, air bubbles trapped in blood vessels, and more.
But why did such an explosion happen at The Oxford Center? Well, Lieutenant Young explained how the incident occurred during the press conference. "The presence of such a high amount of oxygen in a pressurized environment can make it extremely combustible," he stated.
"It's a compressed cylinder, and with the 100% oxygen it runs the risk of having an explosion," Young confirmed. The cops managed to contain the fire from the detonation, and there have so far been no other injuries.
The Oxford Center sent out an email as a statement about the incident. "The safety and wellbeing of the children we serve is our highest priority," it wrote. "Nothing like this has happened in our more than 15 years of providing this type of therapy. We do not know why or how this happened and will participate in all of the investigations that now need to take place."
