A PRESCHOOLER burned to death in front of his mom during ADHD treatment while trapped inside a pressurized oxygen chamber that “became a human incinerator.”
Attorneys have accused the chamber’s manufacturer and operators of “corporate greed” following the horrific death of Thomas Cooper, 5.
2
2
Fieger Law announced on Monday that it has filed a $100 million lawsuit on behalf of Thomas’s parents, James and Juana Cooper.
Thomas, from Royal Oak, Michigan, was pronounced dead at the scene on January 31 at the Oxford Center, a suburban Detroit medical facility in Troy.
He had been strapped into a pressurized oxygen chamber which exploded, killing the young patient “in seconds” and injuring his mother – who tried to rescue him.
In its filings, Fieger has accused the defendants of doing “nothing to mitigate this deadly hazard.”
It alleged they had “failed to warn James and Juana that their 5 year-old son, Thomas, would certainly be killed if the chamber caught fire.”
Per the filings, Fieger claimed the defendants “chose profits over people, consigning patients to be strapped into a chamber that became a human incinerator the instant a spark ignited.”
The lawsuit alleged their “conduct was not mere negligence. It was conscious, deliberate, and depraved.
“The defendants knew with absolute certainty that if a fire occurred in one of its chambers, the patient inside would be burned alive, with zero chance of survival.”
It also claimed, “The death of Thomas was not a tragic accident. It
was a foreseeable, inevitable, and virtually certain result of (the) defendants’ callous indifference to human life.
“Young Thomas Cooper paid the ultimate price for (the) defendants’ corporate greed.”
MURDER CHARGES
In March, four people were charged in relation to his death, including the center’s boss.
Attorney General Dana Nessel said at that time, “A single spark it appears ignited into a fully involved fire that claimed Thomas’s life within seconds.”
The center’s founder and chief executive, Tamela Peterson, 58, has been charged with second-degree murder.
Facility manager Gary Marken, 65, and safety manager Gary Mosteller, 64, were charged with second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter.
What is hyperbaric oxygen therapy?
Thomas Cooper, 5, died in a hyperbaric chamber explosion at a Michigan medical facility
Hyperbaric oxygen therapy is a type of treatment that involves breathing 100% oxygen in a special chamber.
The air pressure inside is raised to a level that is higher than normal air pressure.
The increased air pressure in the chamber helps the lungs collect more oxygen.
The treatment enables your body move more oxygen from your blood to your organs and body tissues.
This promotes healing of injuries and treats various conditions such as decompression sickness, carbon monoxide poisoning, and altitude sickness.
Hyperbaric oxygen therapy is usually delivered in a one-person hyperbaric chamber, according to Harvard University.
A hyperbaric chamber is a large enclosed tube that contains a bed. You lie comfortably on your back and breathe the pure oxygen that is pumped into the chamber.
The FDA has approved hyperbaric oxygen therapy to treat a number of conditions, including:
The operator of the chamber when it exploded, Aleta Moffitt, 60, was charged with involuntary manslaughter and intentionally placing false medical information on a medical records chart.
They all entered not guilty pleas on March 10 before Troy District Court Magistrate Elizabeth Chiappelli.
The civil lawsuit names multiple defendants including the Oxford Centre and Sechrist Industries, which manufactured the hyperbaric chamber.
Other defendants are Peterson, Mosteller, Marken, and the operator of the chamber when it exploded, Aleta Moffitt.
The U.S. Sun has contacted the medical facility and Sechrist for comment on the lawsuit.
SERIOUS INJURIES
According to the legal filings, a nurse at the center had stated last December that the “goals” of Thomas’s treatment was to address “ADHD symptoms, hyperactivity, sleep and overall health.”
Hyperbaric oxygen therapy increases the delivery of oxygen to a person’s body by providing pure oxygen in an enclosed space with higher than normal air pressure, according to the Mayo Clinic.
The lawsuit alleged the center “advertised and sold treatment plans for hyperbaric treatment for over 100 conditions according to their website.”
This included treatment for “HIV, fetal alcohol syndrome, epilepsy, bladder infections, attention deficit disorder and autism.”
In essence, it becomes a death chamber.
Per the filings, the lengthy list of conditions was mentioned by the Oxford Centre “even though the FDA had only approved treatment for 13 conditions due to the unproven efficacy of treatment for any other condition.”
In August the FDA said it was “aware of reports of serious injuries and deaths with use of hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) devices.
“Currently, the root cause of these events is not known.”
DEAD IN MINUTES
Fieger said in its filings that Thomas “was burned to death over the course of minutes.”
It alleged the Sechrist chamber had been designed in a way that made “an emergency extraction impossible.”
Furthermore, fire hazards could result in fatalities “due to the combination of an oxygen-rich, high-pressure environment with the inability to depressurize the vessel quickly for rescue.
“In essence, it becomes a death chamber,” Fieger added.
The firm claimed that Sechrist “was aware the introduction of a single spark, arc, or ignition source in its chamber-pressurized with pure oxygen-would create an inferno from which no patient could possibly escape alive.
“It becomes an uncontrollable inferno in seconds, and the pressurized door cannot be opened until the chamber has slowly decompressed.”
PADLOCKED
The lawsuit has been filed at the Circuit Court for the County of Oakland, Michigan.
During Monday’s press conference announcing the civil action, Fieger Law‘s managing partner James Harrington said, “These machines are a problem.”
He said that following Thomas’s death, “this happened again, in the United States, down in the southwest, where somebody was also killed by one of these machines.”
Harrington added that Fieger has “hired multiple experts… we were actually successful to get the facility padlocked through a court order so that nobody could go in and tamper with the evidence.”
