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May 3, 2009 8:38 pm US/Eastern
Child's Burns May Not Be Survivable
The Italian Family Flew To South Florida For The 4-Year-Old's Oxygen Therapy Sessions
MIAMI (CBS4) ―
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The 4-year-old, Francesco Martinizi, was transported via air rescue helicopter to the hospital on Friday.
CBS
Four-year-old Francesco Martinizi flew to America in the arms of his family and on a dream villagers across Campania, Italy, made possible. More than $100,000 was raised to send him, his parents, and his randmother, "Nonna", to South Florida for oxygen treatments not available in Italy.
The family had hoped to return with smiles to their hometown San Felice a Cancello, named in honor of St. Felice, Italy's patron saint of happiness. But now the grandmother who cradled the child in the hyperbaric oxygen chamber to make him feel safe and well has lost her life and it's not known whether the child's burns are survivable.
No one could have imagined a child's journey would have ended like this.
Italy is on the cusp of tears. This little boy is no stranger there. His hometown is just an hour from where my grandmother was born, a region where villagers raised the funds to send him to America. Just as he was making progress walking and talking, horror struck.
The tragedy is making headlines around the world and for an Italian village there is heartbreak once again. Francesco left here in the care of his grandmother as his parents had returned to San Felice a Cancello so that his mother could give birth to his sibling. She remains in Italy with the infant, and Francesco's father made this unbearably sad trip here on his own.
It appears that this is the first time such a death from explosion associated with a hyperbaric oxygen chamber has occurred in the United States. The investigation into what went wrong is just unfolding. The search for answers may well end up in court.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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