Thomas Cooper was only five-years-old when his life was tragically cut short as a result of a horrific accident in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber which was being used to treat his ADHD
A little boy burnt to death in front of his mum while undergoing ADHD treatment inside a pressurised oxygen chamber.
On January 31, five-year-old Thomas Cooper was taken by his parents to undergo hyperbaric oxygen therapy to treat his ADHD and sleep apnea when the machine exploded. The family has filed a £75million lawsuit against the manufacturer and the facility where the tragedy occurred.
“A single spark it appears ignited into a fully involved fire that claimed Thomas’s life within seconds,” attorney general Dana Nessel said at a news conference. “Fires inside a hyperbaric chamber are considered a terminal event. Every such fire is almost certainly fatal and this is why many procedures and essential safety practices have been developed to keep a fire from ever occurring,” she said.
His mother Juana “Annie” Cooper also suffered serious burns as she tried to get her son out of the furnace, her lawyer said. Their attorney described hyperbaric oxygen chambers, like the one the little boy died in, as ‘death chambers’ and ‘coffins waiting to ignite’, in a lawsuit filed in Oakland County Circuit Court in Michigan, according to the Detroit Free Press.
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“These machines are a problem,” lawyer James Harrington said. “The people operating them are a problem. And we saw what these problems can result in. They’ve resulted in the death of young, beautiful Thomas.”
“The industry knows that these machines can turn into literally a firebomb in an instant,” he continued. “But yet, there isn’t even one sticker. There isn’t even one warning that’s provided. People need to be warned.”
The attorney further described the fire as “a foreseeable, inevitable, and virtually certain result of Defendants’ callous indifference to human life”. “There’s a time period that it takes to pressurise and within a short period of time, he becomes engulfed in flames,” he said.
“There were so many failures. It was designed and manufactured without fire suppression systems, without a deluge system, without an automatic fire detection system, without an effective emergency extraction system, without any warnings whatsoever regarding fire and explosion hazards, without any warnings regarding prohibited items to be taken into the unit, without any warnings whatsoever of electrical hazards, without any warnings and lack of an emergency extraction system.”
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The horrific incident took place at the Oxford Center in Troy, Michigan.
Hyperbaric chambers are pressurised, tube-like devices that provide patients with pure oxygen to help them heal more quickly from certain injuries or illnesses.
The FDA has approved hyperbaric oxygen therapy to treat a number of conditions, including frostbite, infections and swellings, severe anemia and carbon monoxide poisoning. However, due to the machines being filled with 100 percent oxygen and under pressure, they are extremely combustible.
The machines were not approved to be used as therapy for the boy’s conditions, according to the Guardian.
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In addition to the hyperbaric chamber’s manufacturer, Sechrist Industries, seven defendants were named in the lawsuit. Four of the defendants were arrested and charged in connection with the chamber explosion in March.
They include the medical facility’s CEO, Tamela Peterson, primary management assistant Gary Marken, and safety manager Jeffrey Mosteller, who have all been charged with second-degree murder. Meanwhile, hyperbaric chamber operator Aleta Moffitt was charged with involuntary manslaughter and putting false information on medical records. All four have pleaded not guilty.
Raymond Cassar, Marken’s attorney, said: “For fairness, he is presumed innocent. This was a tragic accident and our thoughts and our prayers go out to the family of this little boy. I want to remind everyone that this was an accident, not an intentional act. We’re going to have to leave this up to the experts to find out what was the cause of this.”
In an email following the explosion, the Oxford Center had said that “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.”
Thomas’ family is now raising money to support their fight, to help visit https://www.gofundme.com/f/in-memory-of-thomas-cooper-family-support.