Inflating woman explodes
Nightclub goers were left in shock after a woman suffering from a rare medical condition blew up like a balloon before exploding in a fireball.
According to doctors at St Anthony’s Hospital, Jasmine Kerry, 20, a student at East Anglia University, was a victim of a rare metabolic disorder which causes alcohol in the body to be broken down into methane and oxygen; an explosive mix of gases which then builds up between the organs causing the sufferer’s body to swell to up to seven times its original size as though they were being inflated. It is possible for the person to survive the inflation; however it seems that Miss Kerry was the victim of an unfortunate sequence of events.
‘This is a very rare condition’ said Dr Niall Grant, specialist in metabolic disorders at Cambridge University. ‘There have only been two cases of this spontaneous inflation worldwide and with both the patient was able to make a full recovery after being carefully deflated. What we believe happened to Miss Kerry is that as she inflated she became too close to a spotlight which heated up the gases inside her, causing them to expand. Firstly this would have caused her to become much larger than in any other case, secondly the heating of the gases ultimately caused the methane to ignite, which is what we believe led to the catastrophic explosion.’
Fortunately no one else was seriously hurt in the incident, though several people suffered minor burns and damage was caused to the interior of the club. The event was witnessed by May Williams who was with a group of friends nearby. ‘I heard a yelp and the sound of glass breaking and turned round to see this girl was getting bigger, she continued to expand, becoming round like a parade balloon until she was too swollen to move and her cheeks were too puffed up for her to scream. We could see she was inflating with some kind of gas so we just ran for cover. I didn’t see anything after that because I was hiding, I heard her muffled screaming and a sound like stretching rubber, then I heard this massive bang. I felt the heat and the blast of the explosion and when I looked up there was nothing left of her, just scraps of her clothes and her shoes.’
According to other eyewitnesses, Miss Kerry had been drinking and dancing energetically. This, says Dr Grant, is most likely what brought on the symptoms. ‘The condition can lay unnoticed in a sufferer for many years as it requires the presence of alcohol and increased metabolic activity to bring about the inflation’. Graham Thomson who was working in the club at the time described the moment that Jasmine began to inflate.
‘I had just served her at the bar; she looked quite exhausted after spending a while on the dance floor. As she drank the drink her belly started to bloat rapidly, when she noticed she dropped her glass in shock and started to blow up all over. It all happened so fast, buttons were popping off her blouse and stitches blowing in her jeans as she swelled up; next thing her arms were stuck out to her sides and she looked like a blimp I could tell she was going to explode and ducked behind the bar just as I heard her blow; there was a lot of smoke and ash about and shreds of her clothes were scattered everywhere’.
Doctors believe that the disorder, which is carried on the X-chromosome could be present in a higher number of women than anticipated, and some academics have suggested it has been triggered by a virus which could be present on the campus, they are urging all female students at the University to get tested for the disorder and the virus. While doctors have played down the possibility of an outbreak, Professor Stephen McCormack who has gained international recognition for his work on how viruses can trigger genetic defects, suggests we should exercise caution. ‘The chances may be low, but they are definitely there, and looking at the amount of damage that has been caused by one girl exploding, one needs only to imagine the damage that could be caused if a large number of girls attending this university were to start inflating like balloons and exploding all over the place’.
Police are still trying to contact Miss Kerry’s family, who are believed to be living in the North East.