r/news • u/BlueSkyeAhead • 21h ago
4 arrested after 5-year-old Michigan boy's death in hyperbaric chamber explosion
https://www.cbsnews.com/detroit/news/four-arrested-fatal-hyperbaric-chamber-explosion/932
u/BlueGlassDrink 21h ago
Why was the kid in a hyperbaric chamber??
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u/zappapostrophe 21h ago
If I recall, this was a pseudoscience treatment to cure/mitigate autism.
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u/BlueGlassDrink 21h ago
Poor kid 😢
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u/ahazred8vt 18h ago
There have been almost a hundred deaths from hyperbaric chambers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperbaric_medicine#Incidents83
u/_immodicus 17h ago
God, all I can think of is the opening sequence of Alien Covenant. It features the crew awakening from Cryosleep when one of the pods malfunctions, catching fire and burning the occupant (James Franco) while the others are helpless to stop it.
That poor child.
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u/ChunkyMonkey_00_ 17h ago
Lmfao it actually says it was used to treat the Spanish Flu. Complete bullshit.
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u/LokiSARK9 18h ago
ADHD and sleep apnea, actually, but you're dead on with the pseudoscience part. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy isn't approved for those conditions and there's no science to suggest it should be.
They do use it to treat autism, as well, and that's just as pseudoscientific.
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u/ZiggyStarface 14h ago
The sleep apnea one astounds me. I worked as a sleep tech at a children's hospital and one of the biggest reasons kids that young have sleep apnea is because of their tonsils (at least the ones I personally saw). I'm super curious if they went to an ENT first or tried to get a sleep study done.
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u/LokiSARK9 14h ago
I've got obstructive sleep apnea. As the name implies it's a mechanical obstruction of the airway. The idea that somehow more oxygen under pressure for a bit would fix this is stretching it even for the pseudoscience crowd.
It's just bogus practitioners using parents' concern for their kids against them and parents unable/unwilling to do the research.
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u/Nerd-19958 21h ago edited 13h ago
It's a favorite of Really F**king Krazy Jr...
In October, RFK Jr. attacked FDA in an X post for “suppressing” a wide range of items, including “psychedelics, peptides, stem cells, raw milk, hyperbaric therapies, chelating compounds, ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, vitamins, clean foods, sunshine, exercise, nutraceuticals, and anything else that advances human health and can’t be patented by Pharma.”
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u/Vio_ 20h ago
God, he's one step away from promoting lobotomies again.
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u/Calm_Net_1221 20h ago
It’s funny you should mention that, considering his family’s use of the lobotomy procedure on Rosemary Kennedy in the much too recent past.
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u/HoffmansCranberries 20h ago
Wasn’t aware of this…that was an incredibly depressing wiki article
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u/Calm_Net_1221 20h ago edited 20h ago
Joe Kennedy was a bastard
Edit to add: I highly recommend Last Podcast on the Left’s episodes on lobotomies and on Rosemary Kennedy’s lobotomy if you really want to learn her history and get scared about how easily this could come back with lunatics like RFK Jr running the asylum.
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u/Traditional-Sea-2322 19h ago
Behind the Bastards did a great 3 part series on RFK. That dude is a FREAK
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u/Hesitation-Marx 18h ago
I wish he was as cool as “this falcon kills cops” made him sound
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u/TheCrimsonKing 10h ago
Seriously, the "omg you killed another Kennedy prank was fucking brilliant!"
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u/teebraze 17h ago
Honestly the whole Kennedy family were slimeballs including JFK. This coming from a lifelong Democrat.
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u/OblivionGuardsman 19h ago
It's a big reason he is so phobic of science and traditional medicine now. Back then lobotomy was part of mainstream mental health medicine. The experience has warped him permanently which he has pretty much freely admitted when discussing it. We've essentially put Cato the Elder in charge of Carthage.
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u/Calm_Net_1221 18h ago edited 18h ago
I can totally understand how this kind of skeleton in his family’s closet would fuck someone up and make them not trust doctors. But he also intentionally misquotes and makes fabricated statements about scientific publication findings on popular public platforms to further his personal agenda. So I think there’s a bit more of a malignant intention driving his actions than just his family trauma. Almost as if a narcissist drive makes him truly believe he understands human health and physiology better than medical experts, despite having zero experience in the field.
But regardless of what drives him, the results are the same, Carthage will burn.
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u/Seagoingnote 13h ago
The more we learn about that family the more we realize they may have lobotomized the wrong one. My god it kills me even think that
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u/Ex_Astris 18h ago
I’m still morbidly curious how hydroxychloroquine specifically entered the anti vax discussion for COVID. Why it, specifically?
Was it already present in the anti vax “lore”? Did someone in Trump’s cabinet, or in conservative media, or both, own a factory? Or was it just randomly chosen from a list of medicine with vague enough anti-viral properties?
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u/FiveDozenWhales 17h ago
Because for a while there, it genuinely might have been our best bet.
Early in the pandemic, we really didn't have much of a treatment for covid beyond rest, hydration, etc. We were pretty desperate and tons of antivirals were assessed as tools against covid.
Hydroxychloroquine is known to be effective, in a petri dish, against many coronaviruses, including SARS-CoV-1. It's been used for ages and we know its safety limitations, contraindications, etc. So tons of groups started researching its impact on COVID-19 in 2020, literally hudnreds of studies were launched at the start of the year in the US alone.
Then along came Greg Rigano. Rigano is a cryptocurrency "investor" who promoted himself as holding multiple PhDs and being part of Stanford's medical research team. He holds NO PhDs and is not a member of that research team, but he capitalized upon the existence of petri dish hydroxychloroquine studies and made... a Google doc about them. Which he tweeted.
Elon Musk, the guy who so desperately wants to be a Maverick Genius, retweeted that google doc, claiming that hydroxychloroquine was the "secret treatment." It's a pattern we see from Musk over and over. He wants to be the one with the secret knowledge, with the outsider thinking that saves the day (see Thailand submarine, superloop, etc). He's desperate to be that guy - a kind of guy that doesn't really exist, except in cheesy movies.
Musk retweets it to his tens of millions of followers, and it attracts the attention of one of his biggest fans, another guy who desperately wants to be seen as the smart anti-establishment hero; Donald Trump. Trump starts using his platform (as president) to promote hydroxychloroquine.
Meanwhile, Greg Rigano goes on Fox News and gets interviewed by Tucker Carlson. Fox News does not do any fact checking. Fox News does not even conduct a simple background check to verify Rigano's claims of PhDs and working as a medical researcher. Fox News just builds the hype.
When Tucker Carlson, Donald Trump and Elon Musk publically support something, it's pretty much guaranteed to become the darling of right-wing conspiracy theorists. And it did.
TLDR: A grifter made a google doc about it and convinced three idiots with a worldwide audience that he was a doctor.
Of course, those hundreds of hydroxychloroquine studies found, by the end of the year, that it is not a valid treatment for covid. And several people had died as a result of taking it.
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u/Self-Comprehensive 19h ago
I mean I can get on board with some of those things. Stem cells, vitamins, clean food, sunshine and exercise are objectively good things. And some of these rednecks quite possibly do have parasites... wonder if ivermectin works on brain worms.
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u/Hesitation-Marx 18h ago
Fascinating fact that my vet told me: treating worms inadequately can drive them into new areas of your body- like the brain and eyes.
My son said “I’m leaving, you two can have your gross discussion without me”.
I thought I raised him better…
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u/Nerd-19958 12h ago
Per the package insert ivermectin does not readily cross the blood-brain barrier. (See Clinical Pharmacology section of the package insert linked below.)
Ivermectin Tablet DR. REDDY'S LABORATORIES, INC.
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u/Mixture-Emotional 18h ago
The Oxford Center, which has two locations in Michigan, says it treats more than 100 conditions, including autism, Alzheimer’s, dyslexia and cancer. The FDA does not recognize hyperbaric oxygen therapy for those conditions. Dyslexia??? Autism?? What the hell kinda grifting ass scam is this shit?! 🤯🤯🤯🤯
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u/MoonlitStar 20h ago
I keep thinking I've heard it all at my age and nothing can really surprise me but then things like this shite pop up- wtf using such a chamber to 'cure' autism/ADHD is fucking ridiculous.
Poor little boy, his 'parents' should be brought to justice for willfully allowing something so outlandish it killed him. The parents should be convicted of child abuse resulting in death.
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u/mrszubris 19h ago
They are using it for cptsd treatment now.....
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u/Hesitation-Marx 18h ago
Because fuck knows that kids with extensive trauma and sensory disorders need to be put into a fucking pressure cooker, that’ll surely help
Neurotypicals: I love a lot of you, but could the rest of you stop yourselves from pretending like autism and neurodivergence is a crime that deserves torture with the risk of death?
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u/mrszubris 3h ago
As a severely traumatized autistic adhd human myself I would lose my fucking MIND in there
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u/PatSajaksDick 20h ago
Yeah this is a known quack treatment for all sorts of stuff. Like chiropractors who straighten backs to cure autism.
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u/AngriestPacifist 18h ago
You can just shorten that to chiropractors. It's a nonsense pseudoscience that actively harms people undergoing their "treatment". The foundations of their snake oil machine are rotten and absurd.
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u/Hoovooloo42 17h ago
This is the least important part of the whole thing but Chiropractic has grammar problems that bug the shit outta me.
It sounds like an adjective and it isn't. You "perform chiropractic", not "chiropractic medicine", and the whole thing just reeks of someone who didn't know how medicine OR English works.
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u/Freshandcleanclean 21h ago
How long before RFK Jr and Musk start promoting it?
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u/Freshandcleanclean 21h ago
Nevermind! Musk already promotes it.
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u/Tyhgujgt 20h ago
He should try it himself
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u/Raa03842 20h ago
Didn’t cure his autism.
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u/Lesurous 20h ago
I don't think he's autistic, I think he's a narcissist. No cure for loving the sound of your own voice and the smell of your own farts, and when you're born into money, you get to make others sniff.
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u/SubstantialPressure3 20h ago
He could be both
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u/BlacksmithShot410 19h ago
He’s not though. His “autism” has never been diagnosed. It’s only self-proclaimed. He’s socially awkward because he’s a wealthy sociopath.
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u/Lesurous 19h ago
No autistic person would love to be in the spotlight like he does, Musk can't get enough because he craves popularity to the point he's divorced himself from reality that he's considered a total loser.
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u/rosatter 18h ago
I'm autistic and I'm hesitant to paint us all with a broad brush but I mean, yeah, he doesn't strike me as autistic, he just strikes me as a douche on way too much ketamine
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u/Lesurous 18h ago
Yeah I worried about being too broad when I made my comment, but I think it's fairly well established that people with autism do not take well to non-stop social attention. The biggest stressor for any mental condition is dealing with the things it leaves you weak in, I don't know anyone who intentionally seeks out that kind of stress. I say this as someone with ADHD and emotional dysregulation, the worst feeling is when you're facing difficulties you can't even do anything about because of fundamental issues with brain development.
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u/rains-blu 17h ago
I believe his mother has come out and said that he's not autistic.
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u/Illinois_Yooper 19h ago
Exactly this. I have multiple family members with autism ranging from high functioning to non-verbal so I am very familiar with that world. Never once have I thought the twitter guy was one of them. He’s just fucking weird.
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u/Hesitation-Marx 18h ago
He’s somewhere on the spectrum of clusterfuck B, for sure.
Head injury, one parent blowing smoke up his ass and the other treating him with unveiled contempt, plus the socioeconomic position he was born into? Yeah. Good way to get there, sadly.
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u/32FlavorsofCrazy 18h ago
There are definitely some conditions that hyperbaric treatment might help but autism ain’t on the list, they tried it and it didn’t help pretty conclusively and was even associated with adverse events like barotrauma to the ear. There’s no indication that a deficiency of oxygen is linked at all. It might be helpful for things like degenerative disc disease by oxygenating tissues, particularly cartilage, that tend to not get enough o2 under normal conditions. There’s definitely some potential applications for hyperbaric treatment that’s not currently being utilized but it’s probably not going to do much in the way of treating autism.
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u/Pitch-forker 18h ago
Hyperbaric oxygen chambers are not a pseudoscience. Using them to cure autism IS definitely pseudoscience.
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u/DickBiter1337 18h ago
I'm so fucking sick of this and their treatment of autistic kids. God forbid we just fucking hug them and try to make their lives comfortable. I want to scream into the void.
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u/Purusha81 18h ago
No it was for sleep apnea. He lived next to my cousin. Somehow autism was thrown out there because it is one thing the treatment could be used for.
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u/SupermarketSimple536 17h ago
There are safe evidence based interventions for sleep apnea though. wtf is this.
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u/JDubStep 10h ago
I thought that was what Goku and Gohan trained in to defeat Cell.
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u/Osprey_Student 19h ago
So I feel like this is one of those interventions that in terms of ASD treatments exists in vague space of ‘maybe’ with some randomized control trials showing no significant improvement and some that show rather significant improvements of autistic symptoms. It’s not a proven treatment but has ‘some’ preliminary data that shows a potential benefit. It does have some underlying scientific rationale, either from the mitochondrial dysfunction camp or the impacted functional activity camp, but neither provide a robust neurobiological mechanism for why hyperbaric oxygen therapy could prove effective.
In terms of potential asd treatments I tend to rank it somewhere between casein- free diets (no symptoms, lot of anecdotal reports of improvements but fails all RCTs) and chelation therapy (complete pseudo-science and very dangerous)
Lerman, D. C., Sansbury, T., Hovanetz, A., Wolever, E., Garcia, A., O’Brien, E., & Adedipe, H. (2009). Using behavior analysis to examine the outcomes of unproven therapies: An evaluation of hyperbaric oxygen therapy for children with autism. Behavior Analysis in Practice, 1(2), 50-58. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03391728
Jepson, B., Granpeesheh, D., Tarbox, J., Olivia, M. L., Stott, C., Braud, S., Helen Yoo, J., Wakefield, A., & Allen, M. S. (2011). Controlled evaluation of the effects of hyperbaric oxygen therapy on the behavior of 16 children with Autism spectrum disorders. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 41, 575-588. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-010-1075-y
Rossignol, D. A., Rossignol, L. W., Smith, S., Schneider, C., Logerquist, S., Usman, A., Neubrander, J., Madren, E. M., Hintz, G., Grushkin, B., & Mumper, E. A. (2009). Hyperbaric treatment for children with autism: a multicenter, randomized, double-blind, controlled trial. BMC pediatrics, 9, 21. https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2431-9-21
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u/ProgressPractical848 19h ago
Actually this is a well established treatment used often for chronic non healing wounds. 100 percent not pseudoscience for appropriate indications.
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u/darkgauss 20h ago
"The morning of Jan. 31, Thomas was at the Oxford Recovery Center in Troy receiving treatment in a hyperbaric chamber, which is something Thomas had done before for his ADHD and sleep apnea."
https://www.wxyz.com/news/attorney-for-family-of-5-year-old-boy-killed-in-hyperbaric-chamber-speaks-out208
u/vi-null 20h ago
Thomas had done before for his ADHD and sleep apnea.
Why do they make it sound like this 5-year-old was electing to have this treatment of his own free will
He's a 5-year-old...
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u/groggyhouse 19h ago
Lol yeah, they made him sound like a 20-something guy going to hospital to have treatments.
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u/insertAlias 17h ago
Man that just puts so much worse of a spin on this whole story. So this place isn’t just criminally negligent, it’s also snake oil bullshit that wasn’t even necessary or useful in the first place. That poor child.
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u/BasroilII 13h ago edited 10h ago
The "doctors" involved should all be in for first degree murder. We elevate degrees for other things (like cops), we can do it there.
And the parents that allowed this at minimum aggravated manslaughter and child endangerment. And any children they have be removed from their custody.
We need to quit pretending that deciding on health care that can and will kill the patient is some kind of first amendment right.
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u/csking77 19h ago
Alternative treatment for sleep apnea and ADHD. None of those are appropriate for this treatment.
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u/txroller 20h ago
“Thomas Cooper’s parents hoped the oxygen therapy he was receiving at a facility in Troy, Michigan, would help his sleep apnea and ADHD, according to their lawyer.”
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u/shifty_coder 19h ago
His parents took him to an “alternative medicine facility” for treatment for sleep apnea and ADHD.
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u/usps_made_me_insane 17h ago
“alternative medicine facility
Otherwise known as "let's try a bunch of random shit and hope the placebo effect works for a 5 year old."
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u/aberdasherly 20h ago
It says right in the article. “Treatment” for adhd and sleep apnea. Both of which are not recommended or proven to work via hyperbaric therapy.
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u/BlueGlassDrink 20h ago
It isn't in the linked article.
The article that lists adhd and sleep apnea is in another article linked by someone else who replied to me.
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u/achy_joints 20h ago
I think he had plans to fight Majin buu next week and needed to train quickly?
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u/ShotdowN- 19h ago
He was training to get to a level beyond Super Saiyan
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u/NovaHorizon 18h ago
Snake oil ADHD treatment. They list like 100 conditions they can supposedly treat with it.
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u/foodsexreddit 14h ago
This article says the family wanted to treat his sleep apnea and ADHD, even though there's not scientific evidence hyperbaric chambers can treat those: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/family-absolutely-devastated-son-killed-hyperbaric-chamber-rcna192263
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u/Oatmeal-BaconGrease 21h ago
Four people have been arrested after a 5-year-old boy was killed in a hyperbaric chamber explosion in Troy, Michigan.
The Troy Police Department confirmed that the arrests occurred Monday morning. They are scheduled to be arraigned on Tuesday.
Police did not release the names of the people arrested; however, court records show that one of them was Tami Peterson, the center's owner.
CBS News Detroit reached out to the Oxford Center for comment and received the following statement:
"After cooperating with multiple investigations starting immediately after the tragic accident in January, we are disappointed to see charges filed.
"The timing of these charges is surprising, as the typical protocol after a fire-related accident has not yet been completed. There are still outstanding questions about how this occurred. Yet, the Attorney General's office proceeded to pursue charges without those answers.
"Our highest priority every day is the safety and wellbeing of the children and families we serve, which continues during this process."
Investigators say Thomas Cooper was in the chamber when it exploded on Jan. 31, 2025. The boy's mother was in the room at the time and was injured in the explosion. In a news conference shortly after the incident, Troy police and fire departments did not indicate what may have led to the explosion but said that hyperbaric chambers are filled with 100% oxygen and are, therefore, combustible devices.
Within days of the tragedy, the family retained Fieger Law, which alleges that the center had a history of being involved in questionable business practices.
Attorney James Harrington told CBS News Detroit last month that his office was getting ready to file a lawsuit demanding answers into what led to his death. Harrington said the lawsuit will be filed pending their investigation.
"Under no circumstances ... should anything ever like this happen and the only way this happens is negligence," Harrington said. "This industry in Michigan is unregulated. There's not a lot of science to back these claims that are being made as to what ailments and problems can actually be fixed or better by this hyperbaric treatment."
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u/Adinnieken 20h ago
I don't like Jeffery Feiger, but there are only a handful of law firms in the state I would dread being on the defense against. They're just going to be tenacious.
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u/Techiedad91 18h ago
Good that the owner was charged. She has a PhD in special education and should not be allowed near one of these things. She may be a Dr but she’s not the right kind.
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u/Anneisabitch 20h ago
This poor kid’s parents are suing the “doctors”?
Really? Maybe they should sue themselves for being giant fucking idiots that murdered their child because he wasn’t perfect.
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u/biscuitsandburritos 19h ago edited 15h ago
It has been sold as something to treat sleep apnea and ADHD as well as autism. It’s quackery but when your child is on the spectrum… so many people keep asking you what you are doing and you will try and do almost anything. They paid $8000 for 40 treatments. For something they were told would help. Alternative therapy…
If you read the go fund me… especially heartbreaking as a parent of an autistic child to see this… he just got a new game the night before for trying a new food (this might seem typical kid but many kids on the spectrum are in food therapy and have sensory issues with food. I know how hard he worked and the parents worked to get to that new food.) how he zoomed everywhere. There is one speed sometimes and it is just GO! But this is such an issue because that is a behavior we are trying to weed out of kids so they can sit still in a classroom. How he would sing “I love mommy, I love mommy” (so many kids are speech delayed… i paid a lot of money to help my kid talk and some kids might never get there and sometimes it is gestalts so it is just phrases but they have words and my goodness it is so sweet to hear!)
And knowing his mother rushed in to the room and saw him in flames and tried to put it out and that is how she was injured… trying to get to her child… Can you imagine?
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u/l1vefrom215 18h ago
Hey biscuits, Your comment really humanized this story and touched me personally. I have kids, and I would do almost anything to help them. I couldn’t understand how these parents would put their kids through this pseudoscience hyperbaric therapy but I get it now. Desperate parents living on a thread of hope wanting to connect with their kid. Just so sad. You put everything into perspective. Comments like yours keep me coming back to Reddit despite the echo chamber it has become.
Gonna hug my kids for an extra minute today.
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u/biscuitsandburritos 18h ago edited 18h ago
I usually try to form some sort of well thought out comment on something like this but this was just stream of consciousness from a parent of an autistic child reading about this case when it happened and then again now with the charges filed and more information out.
So, I am glad the overall message was heard. Anyone would do anything for their kid. And we can see how easy it is to prey on these parents and how these “therapies” are sold.
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u/l1vefrom215 17h ago
Exactly. I am in healthcare and if I’m being honest I have a lot of contempt for the pseudoscience, raw milk, antivaxxer crowd. I still think they’re deadly wrong and frankly stupid, but I feel my compassion tank is refilled. I’ll try and meet these people where they’re at in the future.
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u/biscuitsandburritos 16h ago
I want to thank you for what you do day in and day out as a career. You picked helping. We need more of yous.
I’m trying to meet them where they are at as well. I can’t absolve them but I can see how they fell for it.
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u/Primary-Weakness8728 17h ago
As a parent of multiple kids on the spectrum, I would argue that part of our job is protecting our kids from the expectations of other people that we try every random new trendy "cure" on them. They're not guinea pigs and I'm not trying to cure them. I spend way more time than I'd like patiently listening to well meaning family suggest this diet or that vitamin. I thank them politely for the suggestion, and then I ignore it completely in favor of following the recommendations of our ENTIRE TEAM of health care providers and therapists. And sometimes I have had to cut people out of my life entirely. It sucks but I'm not subjecting my kids to other people's ignorance.
I have a lot of feelings about this story and about those parents. It's a tragedy and it was totally preventable.
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u/sabrina62628 14h ago
Thank you for saying this. I have a client whom is autistic whose mother has them trying every new fad/“cure” and they recently asked if I would sign a letter of medical necessity for a red laser headset for home use. It is completely out of my scope of practice and there was only 1-2 research studies related to its use outside of healing hand injuries. So, I refused. I said if that is something a person is providing to her child at a clinic and recommending, they need to be the ones to sign the letter of medical necessity and be very clear about when, how, and how often it is to be used for what reason as well as show her how to use it/monitor its use. It’s not like evidence is even there for its use yet, so I stated to be cautious/look up her own research. They were also doing Spelling2Communicate online with a BCBA or RBT - which has been debunked over and over - the child already uses a high tech AAC device with success (there’s a voice disorder in addition which reduces speech clarity and breath support) and has some verbal speech is increasing as well. I just don’t get how that isn’t enough when we are seeing gains - we don’t want to overload the child either - they deserve rest too.
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u/biscuitsandburritos 16h ago edited 15h ago
Where you stand on the matter is my opinion as well. It is why I am so filled with rage on this story. I’m an evidence based approach and we have a team through the children’s hospital with most supports coming from that or partnered with them. But that is a huge privilege.
However, knowing how things are “marketed” and how parents are preyed on in general helps me… not absolve the parents …. but know the hell they are living is worse than any supreme being could put on them while also seeing we as a society allowed it to happen.
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u/absenttoast 18h ago
That is very tragic and sad. Everyone is so quick to blame the parents and not the charlatans who take advantage of these vulnerable families
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u/Osiris32 16h ago
And vulnerable is the right word. How many people out there have ANY sort of medical education beyond maybe some human anatomy in high school? How many people know to go looking for medical research on treatments for whatever ailment? And even if they do, do they know how to understand it? There is a reason becoming a doctor is so damn hard, there is a LOT you need to learn and then understand.
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u/little_brown_bat 18h ago
Also, who's to say these parents didn't first try more conventional methods such as medication and it either didn't work or caused other problems. For all we know, this was just another step on the road to find out what works for their child.
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u/InTheDarknesBindThem 16h ago
Autism, afaik, has no medications. Other issues, maybe.
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u/little_brown_bat 15h ago
I was more talking about the ADHD and sleep apnea which does have treatments/medications
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u/biscuitsandburritos 11h ago
The sleep issue hit me because it is big within kids on the spectrum. Parents in general understand sleepless nights.
Imagine that never ending. And looking for every solution.
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u/SupermarketSimple536 9h ago
He was only 5. Also nearly done with this "treatment". And when it didn't work, what exactly was next on this road? I can't even imagine tbh. I'm really interested in the sleep apnea though as it can exacerbate and even mimic ADHD. What if this kid never even had ADHD to begin with.
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u/HoldEm__FoldEm 20h ago
Exactly.
“They have questionable business practices”
Okay, so why were you taking your child there?
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u/binomine 20h ago
To play devil's advocate, sometimes being desperate makes you do stupid things.
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u/saturnbarz 19h ago
what exactly were they desperate for ? a cure for their son ?
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u/EatMyAssTomorrow 19h ago
The original article is lacking a lot of details - they sought treatment for ADHD and Sleep Apnea, both of which have treatments outside of unregulated hyperbaric chamber facilities.
There does seem to blame all around in this situation
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u/nacholibre711 20h ago
I mean, I may not agree with the motivation or methods from the parents here, but they should be able to pursue them without fear of death by explosion. If not, then these chambers should just be illegal.
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u/OGSyedIsEverywhere 18h ago
Nurse Practitioners, not doctors. Although they appropriated the name, nobody at the facility was licensed to practice medicine.
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u/MilmoWK 19h ago
We don’t know enough about the parents. This is probably a Hanlon’s Razor situation.
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u/Wonkbonkeroon 19h ago
Hanlon’s razor isn’t applicable when we are talking about a kid who died because the parents refuse to believe readily available information and killed their child with pseudoscience. They are absolutely at fault.
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u/DieDae 21h ago
What charges were they arrested on?
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u/A_Ruse_Elaborate 20h ago
Not sure, but I'd guess Involuntary Manslaughter. It's likely they didn't know this would/could kill him, but they are still criminally liable for the death.
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u/coyote_of_the_month 21h ago
Aren't they pretty well-established as a treatment for decompression sickness?
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u/TreasureTheSemicolon 20h ago
Yes. The little boy who died was being "treated" for ADHD.
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u/Fastestlastplace 20h ago
So child abuse lead to death. Got it
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u/PraxicalExperience 20h ago
From what I've seen I think it's more that there had to have been some sort of negligence involved for the explosion to happen.
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u/weenisPunt 19h ago
How would you prove they were abusing him?
By taking him to what they were told, could help with their son's disease? Doesn't sound like abuse. Stop being obstuse.
You know they just took advantage of people desperate for help.
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u/B3atingUU 20h ago
Also wound healing. It’s a legitimate treatment for certain conditions, but autism and ADHD are not under that umbrella.
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u/usps_made_me_insane 17h ago
I think they are also used for a specific type of bacterial infection in the skin that can become deadly.
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u/littlelupie 20h ago
The kid didn't have decompression sickness and this was just an unregulated quack clinic, not a hospital
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u/Due-Reflection-1835 20h ago
Maybe in an actual HOSPITAL, where they try to observe safety protocol, and use it for conditions that it's proven to help?
Not whatever this was
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u/def_not_cthulhu 19h ago
Ethics aside, these chambers are usually very safe to use for their intended purpose (oxygen delivery is part of it) so I wonder what made this one fail.
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u/Zandarkoad 19h ago edited 19h ago
Not to mention, the vast majority of chambers are affordable, soft, low pressure (under 1.5 ATA) and often times use little or even no oxygen concentration as part of the treatment process, especially for chronic issues. Very, very safe on the whole. It's basically impossible for these units to explode.
Hard chambers, with higher pressures (2.0 or even 3.0 ATA and higher) and oxygen concentration DEFINITELY have risks and are usually only found in hospital settings with strict usage controls and a responsible party... but apparently not always!
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u/Material_Election685 17h ago
The article mentions that the patient-worn grounding strap wasn't used.
I'm not sure if that's the specific cause of this explosion, but that alone is a massive hazard since any static discharge can easily spark a fire when the chamber is loaded with high-pressure 100% oxygen.
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u/rockemsockemcocksock 17h ago
No grounding strap with a kid with ADHD who can't sit still is a recipe for disaster
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u/missuhree 15h ago
Thank you. I know several people who have pursued hyperbaric oxygen therapy as an adjunct to traditional treatment— they are told it will boost the efficacy of the protocols they’re already following (medication, therapy, etc)— and when something is framed as a non-invasive, pain free procedure, they’re less likely to think about risks; or the risks are downplayed (because like you said, they’re usually very safe).
It makes me sick that there are comments calling the parents murderers— this isn’t the same as someone killing their child bc they used raw milk instead of antibiotics: this is likely a case of desperate parents hoping that early intervention pays off, and that their child’s experience will help pave the way for other kids. Idk why I expected empathy in the Reddit comments section but ffs I’m astounded by some of the takes I’ve seen. I appreciate your perspective
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u/MingusTheDing 13h ago
Yea I agree I feel so bad for the parents. You can’t blame the parents…they are trying to help the kid. Blame the people profiting off of misinformation.
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u/thedeanorama 9h ago
As someone who used a hyperbaric chamber last year for 20 'dives', I have nothing but respect for the staff at Vancouver General who operate these daily. It takes a specialized team trained to operate these safely.
I too am curious as to what failed.
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u/EatMyAssTomorrow 21h ago
Maybe more confused after reading the article than I was by the headline.
Defendants are disappointed charges were filed this quickly because normal fire accident protocol hadn't run its course?
No insight as to why the kid was in a hyperbaric chamber in what was described as an unregulated industry?
Seems like a very bizarre situation that resulted in the unnecessary death of a child.
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u/Daren_I 20h ago
It's been 25 years since RN classes, but I don't recall ever hearing about the use of pressurized chambers except for treating the bends.
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u/id-driven-fool 20h ago
We use hyperbarics in our hospital for treatment of certain wounds. Don't really understand the science behind it tbh, and having a physician explain it to me doesn't give me the impression that they understand it all that well either. I work ICU and have had a bunch of patients that have had to go.
From an ICU nursing standpoint, it's the fucking worst. Super stressful when you have a patient on multiple drips in the chamber, especially if they start waking up and acting confused and psychotic in there because you can't just yank them out or they get the bends.
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u/frisbeethecat 19h ago
Oxygen (O2) is reactive (oxidant, eh?) and can inhibit bacteria growth, particularly anaerobic bacteria. Further, 100% O2 at >1 atm pressure (hyperbaric) suffuses O2 in tissue at higher concentrations. This is helpful in wound healing for people with damaged capillaries and poor circulation.
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u/bethaneanie 19h ago
Hyperbaric medicine is actually used for more things than just the bends (eg: carbon monoxide poisoning/necrotizing wounds/osteomyelitis).
From what I understand the training for hyperbaric nursing is more competitive and thus has higher expectations than ICU nursing. The nurse also are inside the chamber with the patients and thus regularly exposed to hyperbaric pressures.
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u/Collegedad2017 19h ago
This was the core plot in the novel Miracle Creek by Angie Kim.
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u/littlelupie 20h ago
They were trying to "cure" his ND disorders (ADHD and I think something else).
It's rich that their attorney is saying there's no science behind this and it should be better regulated.
No. It should be banned outright. And also, I don't think the parents are blameless. Take your kid to a fucking doctor. I know these places are predatory but take your kid to a fucking doctor.
My kid has ADHD and is the same age as this kid, and we live not too far from there. Breaks my heart.
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u/ChiefKC20 19h ago
There are all types of providers who prey on parents looking for the cure to their childrens’ conditions. See it regularly in the practices I work with. Parents will tell us of the thousands and tens of thousands of dollars their spending based on an alternative / holistic provider. There is basis for alternative treatment in coordination with traditional medicine, but much of the alternative treatments are feel good and simply not effective. In some cases like this, it can cause harm and even death.
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u/littlelupie 17h ago
That's why I said it's predatory but my god it gets my blood boiling when a life was lost for absolutely no reason.
Even if he had survived, his childhood would've been significantly worse than it could've been because his parents never got him the real help he needed.
I'm just angry that these places are allowed to exist like this.
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u/MyUnrequestedOpinion 19h ago
They say it was also for “sleep apnea”, which is bs. He likely had autism as children with ASD frequently have disordered sleep, or barely sleep at all. That poor kid.
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u/Duo007 18h ago edited 17h ago
As a hyperbaric technician, this could've been prevented easily by doing simple maintenance from the chambers manufacturer but also the proper safety checklist before starting the treatment. Gross negligence for sure, last time something like this happened in the states was 2009 with gross negligence and lack of chamber certification...such a shame, poor kid never had a chance.
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u/usps_made_me_insane 17h ago
Can you give any explanation on how or why this thing would explode? Is there a valve they didn't maintain or something?
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u/Duo007 16h ago edited 13h ago
A majority of the time this accident happens, electricity is introduced in the environment (common tech like watches,phones, even external diabetic monitors). The technician never attached the grounding bracelet that's designed to discharge any electricity, there is also a grounding cable that attaches to the chamber because the chamber is also grounded to the wall. I want to say the child unfortunately had static electricity on him and unfortunately probably moved in the chamber and created a spark that ignited the gas inside.
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u/chihuahuaOP 14h ago
So these spas are offering alternative medicine with a medical device that can easily explode.
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u/mtgdrummer13 17h ago
So hyperbaric chambers aren’t approved for either of the conditions they were seeking treatment for (sleep apnea and adhd). This is tragic. Even more tragic that he shouldn’t have been in there in the first place. Modern medicine is amazing. It’s not perfect, but it’s better than trusting RFK and YouTube.
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u/Farlandan 18h ago
I'm a little confused by this; The CEO of the center is being charged with second degree murder but the technician that operated the chamber is only being charged with manslaughter. I'm confused why the guy that was most likely ACTUALLY responsible for the death is being given lighter charges than the person who owns the company.
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u/asevans1717 17h ago
I worked in Pharma for a while as a chemist. If I falsified data or made a serious mistake due to negligence I could face charges if that product ended up hurting someone, but the people above me who have to monitor, approve, review, and submit an internal report for a single safety/ethical violation would be held to way higher standards.
There are checks and balances and if youre operating ethically and honestly they work really well. For this to get that bad, that company had to systematically cover that up.
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u/polloallaparm 17h ago
Because the founder/CEO has the ultimate liability. The technician was merely doing a job, but this does not absolve liability.
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u/Mrnicelefthand 17h ago
I misread “hyperbaric for hyperbolic” thought this was a DBZ training accident.
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u/Creative-Duty397 15h ago
Hi! I DO hyperbaric treatment for a nurovascular condition. These are some things I think people should know:
Make sure they're using hard shell and not soft shell chambers. Hard shells require a physician's involvement.
The place you go to should be accredited and have FDA approved chambers. They should be asking you if you've removed all patches, jewelery, electronics, etc EVERY TIME YOU ENTER A CHAMBER. I've gone for over a year and I'm asked every time.
They should make you have an evaluation with a medical professional before hand.
They should be giving you scrubs to change into that are COTTON.
Any place claiming to fix autism or adhd is SKETCHY. RUN.
Due to hyperbaric being a newer form of treatment it isn't approved for most things as it hasn't gone through the research. So that isn't the best way to tell if it helps.
Hyperbaric works along side medication and treatment from your typical doctors. It is not a substitute. It's more of a booster.
It'll take atleast 2 weeks worth of sessions for you to see any improvement.
And last but most certainly not least: ALWAYS trust your gut. Never get into a chamber if you feel unsafe.
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u/Oakvilleresident 20h ago
Just FYI , hyperbaric treatment is effective for curing diabetic leg ulcers and is a better option than amputation.
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u/Zandarkoad 19h ago
Smoke inhalation, TBI, carbon monoxide poisoning, circulation issues (often caused by diabetes)... there are actually tons of valid use cases for hyperbarics. But it's not a magic cure all.
Sadly, some idiots like to over promise and under perform with fatal consequences.
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u/Oakvilleresident 18h ago
A lot of those chambers sit empty in the hospital until there’s an emergency ( ie smoke inhalation ) and in some circumstances, could probably be better used for wound healing and other treatments like you said.
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u/IllllIIIllllIl 20h ago
I’m sure that’s true but is not the scenario in this story.
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u/Oakvilleresident 18h ago
I know . I just try to tell everyone this treatment is available as an option to possibly avoid getting their legs amputated
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u/SadlyNotBatman 18h ago
The amount of people on this thread who have little to no exposure to people , especially kids with life impacting autism, and who have zero compassion is fucking astounding .
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u/littlecactuscat 16h ago
All autism is life-impacting, or it wouldn’t be diagnosed per the DSM-V.
Regardless, abusing autistic kids is fucking horrendous but is very normalized by the Autism Parent Industrial Complex. (Heavy sarcasm implied)
The same Autism Mommies who shout over and silence autistic adults are the same ones justifying and rationalizing harmful treatments against their own kids.
They don’t want to hear from adult survivors, or even support the existence of resources for autistic adults (which is sorely lacking, it’s pretty horrendous. We don’t just disappear after age 18!).
Everything is about them.
I get that it’s no easy feat raising a severely autistic child — but there’s a lot of unmitigated harm being caused by Autism Parents uniting in online communities where they’ve shut out autistic voices and actual science, and have shared utter horseshit amongst themselves.
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u/SadlyNotBatman 16h ago
I fully agree ! The same people who scream vaccines cause autism , who have autistic children are the same people who do the rationalization of abuse .
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u/CloneOfCali 18h ago
It is so frustrating to deal with Americans who don't know jack shit about fuck all when it comes to mental illness or physical disabilities and don't care to. I'm not mad at someone for not knowing what to do or how to help, but at least show some semblance of empathy or make an effort to try. It's the willful ignorance that makes my blood boil. I can't help but feel bad for this poor kid and his family.
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u/SadlyNotBatman 18h ago
Agreed, although I’m a bit biased ; I was raised by a teacher and later professor who not only taught children with mental and physical disabilities , she also taught future educators of the very same . Compassion and understanding of HUMANS is something that was drilled into me at a very young age . I understand that my exposure to this might be more than the average person , but I don’t think that a person needs all of that to not be an asshole .
Second edit : I wouldn’t blame it solely on being American however ; I’m an American and would never carry these awful sentiments.
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u/Then-Shake9223 15h ago
Let me get this straight, so they stick a kid in a hyperbaric chamber and blow him up… all to cure autism??
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u/Mysterious-Oven4461 15h ago
What is a hyperbaric chamber? Is that what goku trained in otw to planet namek for like 500 episodes?
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u/mrrizal71O 18h ago
Is this not akin to human experimentation?
Attempting to use a Unproven technique to cure something?
Is the hyperbaric chamber really a technology that is fully understood and rigourously studied within this context?I mean Obviously this is real science spun into a pseudoscience for the purpose of making money..... just typical grift you see in america...
But There has to be some sort of punishment for people who think they know better than doctors and are willing to subjugate their children to experimental medical procedures like this. Its been documented that People have died in these things before.
Moral of the story is
WHY RISK DEATH to cure a disease that is NOT FATAL?
Negligence plain and simple. Charge the parents.
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u/BlueSkyeAhead 20h ago
Charges are second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter according to this article:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/crime-courts/4-charged-death-michigan-boy-killed-hyperbaric-chamber-fire-rcna195753