Boy dies in explosion of hyperbar chamber on Troy Medical Facility

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A 5-year-old boy from Royal Oak died Friday morning during an explosion of a hyperbarian chamber at a Troy Medical Center, police say.

The medical facility, Oxford Centeris located on 165 Karts Boulevard. The explosion happened shortly before 7 p.m. 8, and police said the boy was found dead inside the chamber. His mother, who was injured, was there with him at the facility, officials said.

The Oxford Center’s website says it provides therapy for children with several conditions, such as autism, cancers, ADHD, autoimmune diseases and a number of others.

Troy Fire Lt. Keith Young said that investigators do not yet know what exactly caused the explosion but concentrated oxygen, and the pressure used in hyperbaric chambers is fuel for fire.

In a statement from the Oxford Center, spokesman Andrew Kistner wrote in an e -mail that the cause of the explosion is unknown and that Friday was an “exceptionally difficult day for all of us.”

“As law enforcement authorities have shared our location in Troy, Michigan this morning, a fire started inside a hyperbar oxygen chamber. The child who was treated in the fact that the chamber did not survive and the child’s mother was wounded,” the statement reads.

“The safety and well -being of the children we earn is our highest priority. Nothing like this has happened in our more than 15 years of giving this type of therapy. We do not know why or how this happened and will participate in all studies It must now take place.

Troy Police Lt. Ben Hancock said the mother was standing right next to the chamber as it exploded and suffered damage to her arms.

He described the explosion as a “very sad event”.

Young said the state oversees hyperbarian medical chambers.

For decades, hyperable oxygen therapy has been used to relieve the effects of decomation disease for divers, to help firefighters, miners and others who have carbon monoxide poisoning, to improve success with skin transplants and to speed up healing of infections such as diabetic foot ulcers and gangrene Treatment of crushing damage according to Johns Hopkins Medicine.

Here’s how it works: People go into either a monoplace chamber built for a person or a multi -space chamber that can fit two or more people.

In a monoplace chamber, a person lies in a long plastic tube that looks like an MRI machine. In a Multiplace chamber, people inhale through masks or caps.

Pure oxygen is pumped into a pressure chamber, mask or hood, and people inside inhale the concentrated oxygen that enters the bloodstream and tissue to increase healing and improvement after injury and help the body fight infections.

John’s Hopkins Medicine reports that each session can last from 45 minutes to five hours, depending on the cause of the treatment.

The Oxford Center is among other alternative medical centers or medical spas, which in recent years has offered hyperbar oxygen treatment for conditions not approved by US Food and Drug Administrationsuch as autism spectrum disorder, cerebral palsy, sports injuries, covid-19, depression, alopecia, HIV/AIDS, stroke, migraine headache and as an anti-aging treatment, Cleveland Clinic reports.

Oxford Center, which has locations in Brighton and Troy, has created controversy. In August, the facility’s former director Kimberly Coden pleaded guilty to nine charges after officials of Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s office said she used false credentials to treat children with autism.

She presented herself falsely as a board -certified behavioral analyst without being licensed and without the right education and used an actual analyst certification to get jobs in the healthcare sector, officials said. And she had also used professional business cards, verbal statements, written documents and presented university degrees that she allegedly did not earn.

The cod also tried to scare a witness through text messages to prevent them from testifying against her, officials said.

When the code pleaded guilty, her lawyer said her client was “really, really remorse.”

Dangers of hyperbar chambers

A study was published in Medical Journal Lancet Review of hyperbar chamber fires over more than 70 years, from 1923 to 1996, and found that 77 people died in 35 fires. Before 1980, most fires were caused by electric ignition. But since then they were triggered by something that was brought into the hyperbarian chamber.

Officials in Friday’s explosion in the Oxford Center said they don’t know if anyone brought anything into the chamber before it exploded, but acknowledged that the chambers create an environment that is “extremely combustible.”

National Fire Protection Association have written about the various dangers associated with hyperbarous facilities, including the increased pressure and presence of elevated oxygen levels.

In a blog post from August 2021 from the National Fire Protection Association, Brian O’Connor wrote:

“Although oxygen itself is not flammable, it is an oxidizing agent that supports combustion and can increase the flammability of other materials,” wrote Brian O’Connor from the association in August 2021, including fire resistant substances and materials.

“This means that care must be taken to prevent the means of ignition from entering the oxygen -enriching environment as the conditions for growing rapidly.”

O’Connor wrote that another fire safety problem with hyperbarian chamber facilities is that it is difficult to evacuate the chamber when fires occur.

“Since these chambers are under pressure, they must undergo a decompression process before residents can safely exit. The process is required so as not to take more than six minutes for (multiplay) chambers and two minutes for (Monoplace chambers) when they return from three times standard atmospheric pressure, ”he wrote.

“These facts, he said, makes it important to ensure that any facility that uses a hyperbarian chamber adheres to strict fire safety regulations, such as only having certain substances carried and limiting other combustible materials to be brought inside the chamber, and Installed special sprinkler systems and in some cases independently delivered hand lines.

This story was updated to add new information.

Free press author Darcie Moran contributed to this report.

Andrea Sahouri covers criminal justice for Detroit Free Press. Contact her on [email protected] or on x: @andreamsahouri.