Jul 2, 2009 12:49 pm US/Eastern
Family Sues Over Hyperbaric Chamber Deaths
FORT LAUDERDALE (CBS4) ―
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Francesco Martinizi is wheeled to a waiting ambulance after an explosion and fire inside a hyperbaric chamber.
CBS
The family of a young boy and his grandmother who died as the result of a flash fire in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber has filed two wrongful death suits against the company which operated the facility where it happened.
The family of 4-year-old Francesco Martinizi had brought the boy to South Florida from Italy to receive treatments at the Ocean Hyperbaric Oxygen Neurologic Center in Ft. Lauderdale for his cerebral palsy.
On May 1st, the boy and his 62-year old grandmother were inside the pressurized oxygen chamber when something went terribly wrong. There was an explosion inside the chamber and a flash fire that fatally burned the grandmother, Vincenza Pesce, and left the boy with severe burns over 90 percent of his body.
Francesco was taken to Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami where he died 44 days later.
Hyperbaric oxygen chambers are used to breathe pure oxygen while under increased air pressure as a means to treat a variety of medical conditions.
Investigators say a tube attached to the chamber had become dislodge which resulted in an explosion and flash fire. The case remains under investigation by the Broward County Sheriffs Office.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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