5-year-old killed in hyperbaric chamber explosion in Michigan
A hyperbaric chamber; BSIP/UIG Via Getty Images
(TROY, Mich.) — A 5-year-old boy was killed and his mother was injured Friday after a hyperbaric chamber exploded at a medical facility in Troy, Michigan.
The chamber contained 100% oxygen, making it extremely flammable, according to Lt. Keith Young of the Detroit Fire Department.
Officers and firefighters responded to the explosion shortly before 8 a.m.
“Upon arrival, the first responding units unfortunately discovered a 5-year-old boy deceased on the scene,” Lt. Ben Hancock of the Troy Police Department said at a press conference.
The boy’s mother was standing next to the chamber when it exploded and suffered injuries to her arms, officials said. A few medical staff members were also present but were not seriously hurt.
It’s not clear what kind of treatment the boy was receiving at the time.
The explosion was contained to the chamber and firefighters quickly brought the fire under control, they said.
“I’ve been with the department for 10 years, and we’ve never responded to anything like this,” Young said.
The cause of the explosion is still under investigation, and multiple state agencies are involved in examining safety regulations at the facility. In the meantime, the medical center remains closed.
(NEWARK, NJ) — A Pennsylvania man attempting to go through airport security was discovered to have been hiding a living turtle in his pants as he tried to sneak it onto the plane, authorities said.
The incident took place last Friday at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey when a man from Pennsylvania was going through a body scan in the security area when an alarm was triggered “in the area of the man’s groin,” according to a statement from the Transportation Security Administration on Tuesday.
“A TSA officer administered a pat-down of the area of the man’s body where the alarm was triggered and in doing so, determined that there was something concealed in the area of the man’s groin,” TSA officials said regarding the incident. “When asked if there was something hidden in his pants, the man, a resident of East Stroudsburg, Pa., reached down the front of his pants and pulled out a live turtle that was wrapped in a small blue towel.”
The turtle was estimated to be approximately five inches in length and identified to be a red-ear slider turtle – one of the most popular breeds of pet turtle in the United States – by the man once he was caught by airport security.
“Port Authority Police questioned the man, took possession of the turtle and indicated that they would contact the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and local animal control officials,” the TSA said.
The unnamed man missed his flight and was escorted out of the checkpoint by police.
Thomas Carter, TSA’s Federal Security Director for New Jersey, said that this is the first time he has ever seen someone trying to smuggle a live animal down the front on their pants as they attempted to go through security.
“I commend our officer who conducted the pat-down in a very professional manner in an effort to resolve the alarm,” said Carter. “We have seen travelers try to conceal knives and other weapons on their person, in their shoes and in their luggage, however I believe this is the first time we have come across someone who was concealing a live animal down the front of his pants. As best as we could tell, the turtle was not harmed by the man’s actions.”
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump is planning to attend the Super Bowl in New Orleans on Sunday, sources confirmed to ABC News.
The Super Bowl 59 matchup between the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles comes one month after a terrorist drove a truck down Bourbon Street in New Orleans on New Year’s Day, killing 14 people and injuring dozens more.
There will be over 2,700 state, federal and local law enforcement members securing the game, according to officials.
The game gets a SEAR 1 rating — meaning there is a federal coordinator that is in charge of the security; in this case, it’s the special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations’ New Orleans field office. Drones are not allowed anywhere near the stadium.
“We have reviewed and re-reviewed all the details of what happened on Jan. 1,” NFL Chief of Security Cathy Lanier said. “We have reviewed and re-reviewed each of our roles within the overarching security plan, and we have reassessed and stressed tested — our timing, our communication protocols, our contingency measures and our emergency response plans multiple times over, over the past several weeks.”
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Lawyers for the man accused of killing four Idaho college students are asking the judge in his capital murder case to ban a key witness from using the phrase “bushy eyebrows” to describe the assailant she saw the night of the bloody attack.
That request was included in roughly 100 pages of court filings unsealed Tuesday as preparations continue in advance of the August trial of Bryan Kohberger, who’s charged in the November 2022 killings of Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin.
A roommate of the victims, who lived at the off-campus Moscow, Idaho, home where the killings occurred originally told detectives that the masked male intruder she saw on the night of the killings had a singular physical attribute: “bushy eyebrows.” That phrase has rocketed around the world as the headline-grabbing case has moved slowly toward a trial in Boise, Idaho.
Kohberger’s defense attorneys argued the superficial description will unfairly point the finger at him and potentially bias the jury.
“The description provided by [the roommate] is unreliable and should be excluded,” defense lawyer Elisa Massoth wrote. “Although she has never identified Mr. Kohberger, testimony by [the roommate] from the witness stand, describing bushy eyebrows while Mr. Kohberger sits as the accused at trial, will be as damning as her pointing to him and saying, ‘he is the man that did this.'”
The roommate’s varying accounts and self-confessed sleepy intoxication that night make her memory fickle, Kohberger’s lawyers have argued. And, they argued, she seemed preoccupied with bushy eyebrows even before her friends were killed.
When police photographed the crime scene right after the killings, her room was found to have “many pictures of eyes with prominent eyebrows” on the walls in her room, Kohberger’s lawyers said.
“Many of which she had drawn. Some of the eyebrows are heavy, voluminous, puffy, or perhaps subjectively bushy,” and there was “artwork of human figures with an emphasis upon the eyes and eyebrows were pinned to corkboards,” they said.
Kohberger’s defense attorneys have also asked the judge to bar words like “murder,” “psychopath” and “sociopath” during the trial.
“To label Mr. Kohberger as a ‘murderer,’ the alleged weapon consistent with an empty sheath as a ‘murder weapon’ or to assert that any of the four decedents was ‘murdered’ by Mr. Kohberger denies his right to a fair trial and the right to be presumed innocent,” the defense said.
Prosecutors allege that in the early morning hours of Nov. 13, 2022, Kohberger broke into an off-campus home and stabbed the four students to death. He was arrested in late December, after a six-week manhunt, at his parents’ Pennsylvania home and indicted in May 2023.
He was charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of burglary. At his arraignment, he declined to offer a plea, so the judge entered a not-guilty plea on his behalf.
If convicted, Kohberger could face the death penalty. But not if his lawyers get their way.
Defense attorneys cite autism in bid to strike death penalty
Among the flurry of new filings, the defense also argued his life should not be on the line — because he has been diagnosed with autism, and so his impairments in communication, problems with social skills and impulse control mean he is “insufficiently culpable to be executed.”
His diagnosis however should not be wielded against him, the defense said — arguing prosecutors should not be allowed to use it “by criminalizing his status as a disabled person.”
Even if this does not work to strike the death penalty, his diagnosis could resurface in the sentencing phase if Kohberger is convicted, where his lawyers will likely raise it again as a mitigating factor.
This is not the first time his lawyers have attempted to get the death penalty taken off the table.
In their argument about his condition now, Kohberger’s lawyers shed new light on what has been a heretofore little-known person to the public.
“Mr. Kohberger displays extremely rigid thinking, perseverates on specific topics, processes information on a piece-meal basis, struggles to plan ahead, and demonstrates little insight into his own behaviors and emotions” and “his tone and cadence are abnormal, his interactions lack fluidity, and his language is often overinclusive, disorganized, highly repetitive, and oddly formal,” they argued.
He “frequently shifts the topic back to himself even when it is inappropriate. He uses abrupt, matter-of-fact phrases that would be considered rude. He carries on about topics in a circular manner and perseverates about specific, non-essential details,” they said, adding his autism is “also accompanied by obsessive-compulsiveness, and an eating disorder. Since childhood, Mr. Kohberger has exhibited compulsions around getting things in his eyes, hand-washing and other germ avoidant behaviors.”
