The Clark County Coroner's Office said Salvacion died of asphyxia, suffocating in an oxygen-poor environment. Her death was determined to be an accident.
The Coroner's Office could not determine whether or not Salvacion was standing or not when she became unconscious and is not clear for how long she was in the chamber before she passed away at the Rejuvenice spa.
The cryotherapy chamber uses nitrogen to cool the chamber. During this process, the nitrogen displaces most of the oxygen inside the chamber. Normal air is about 21 percent oxygen when in use. Oxygen levels inside the chamber can drop to less than 5 percent. Breathing air with this low level of oxygen can quickly result in unconsciousness and then death.
Salvacion's family lawyer, Richard Harris of Richard Harris Law Firm, spoke to Balitang America and said that the family is still in a state of shock, especially Chelsea's mom, Patricia. Salvacion was an only child.
"I think we all believe that it was accidental in terms of no one tried to kill Chelsea, there was no foul play. But that doesn't mean that her death was accidental such as act of God. It's my belief that the death was the result of defective machine because of the over delivery of nitrogen it push out all of the oxygen so Chelsea was overcome by too much nitrogen," he said.
Harris said that his law firm and team were retained by the Ake family to investigate thoroughly the cryotherapy machine's manufacturer and design.
"Chelsea, in the 2 or 3 days leading up to the accident, was sending text messages to a friend where she was concerned about too much nitrogen is being delivered," said Harris.
Harris added that Salvacion's tragic death brings a lot of awareness and pressing regulation issues on public health.
"Here is an industry that claims to have therapeutic benefit that put you in a machine that can kill you. Yet, absolutely no regulation, no inspection, no licensing, no monitoring, no requirements or whatsoever," he said.
Although the Rejuvenice salon's door shows it is open for business, the notice from the State of Nevada Department of Business Industry is still posted, stating the facility failed to secure and maintain mandatory workers' compensation insurance. Officials have said it had no license to operate.
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source: www.abs-cbnnews.com
