(CBS DETROIT) — A 5-year-old Michigan boy was killed Friday morning when a hyperbaric chamber he was inside of exploded, officials said.
Police and firefighters responded to The Oxford Medical Center in Troy around 8 a.m. Friday for a report of a hyperbaric chamber explosion. When emergency responders arrived at the facility, they found the boy, from Royal Oak, dead inside the chamber.
The boy’s mother, who was near the chamber when it exploded, suffered injuries to her arms. No one else was injured in the explosion.
Police did not say what the child was being treated for.
Police and fire officials have not determined the cause of the explosion. Crews were able to contain the fire in the room.
A hyperbaric chamber is an enclosed space that delivers pure oxygen to the body with higher than normal air pressure, according to the Mayo Clinic. During the oxygen therapy in the chamber, air pressure is increased 2 to 3 times higher than normal air pressure.
Hyperbaric chambers can be used for life-saving, limb-saving, and tissue-saving treatments, as well as for other treatments, such as low red blood cell counts caused by blood loss and sudden hearing loss from an unknown cause.
Because a hyperbaric chamber contains such a high amount of oxygen in a pressurized space, it can be extremely combustible.
“A hyperbaric chamber contains 100% oxygen, which is up to five times the amount of oxygen in a normal room,” said Troy Fire Department Lt. Keith Young. “The presence of such a high amount of oxygen in a pressurized environment can make it extremely combustible.”
Social workers with the Oakland Community Health Network are working with first responders and medical staff who responded to the scene.
The Oxford Center, which offers various integrative medical therapies, issued the following statement on the explosion:
“This is an exceptionally difficult day for all of us. As law enforcement officials have shared, at our location in Troy, Michigan this morning, a fire started inside of a hyperbaric oxygen chamber. The child being treated in that chamber did not survive and the child’s mother was injured.
The safety and wellbeing of the children we serve is our highest priority. 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.”
An investigation is ongoing.
“There’s going to be multiple jurisdictions and departments throughout the state that are going to be a part of this investigation,” said Young.
The medical facility is closed until further notice.
