A fitness blogger and French Instagram model has died after a pressurized whipped cream dispenser exploded and hit her in the chest.
According to French newspaper 20 Minutes via the Washington Post, 33-year-old Rebecca Burger suffered cardiac arrest in her home on Saturday, June 17. Though firefighters were able to revive her, Burger arrived at the hospital unconscious and died on Sunday.
Burger’s family announced her death to her nearly 170,000 followers on Instagram through two posts on Tuesday.
“It is with great sadness that we announce the death of Rebecca on Sunday, June 18, 2017, following a domestic accident. The family, relatives, and husband are in mourning,” one posts translated from French reads.
The second post warns readers about the whipped cream dispenser Burger used. Whipped cream dispensers use small cartridges of nitrous oxide, the silver bullet-shaped containers pictured below, to pressurize the cream. The cartridges are placed into small containers, which are then screwed onto the head of the dispenser. When the containers are fully screwed onto the head, a pin pierces the cartridge, releasing the gas to pressurize the container holding the cream.
“Here’s an example of the cartridge/siphon from Chantilly that exploded and struck Rebecca’s chest, killing her. Take note: the cartridge that caused her death was sealed. Do not use this type of device in your home! Tens of thousands of these appliances are still in circulation,” the post, translated by the Post, reads.
Burger isn’t the first to be killed by one of these dispensers, the Post reports. In 2013, that one dispenser victim broke six ribs and her sternum after attempting to make dessert for her grandson, the Local reported.
“At the hospital, I was told that if the shock and blast had been facing the heart, I would be dead now,” the survivor told RTL radio.
Consumer magazine 60 Millions de Consommateurs reported that two people in France were injured by a whipped cream dispenser in 2014. That year, the French economy ministry cautioned against using such dispensers at home, and a France consumer watchdog group warned about 15 different brands of dispensers with defective parts.
“When a user screws a new gas cartridge into the head of one of the defective canisters the resulting pressure causes the spray nozzle to break free and fire off like a rubber bullet,” the group told the Local.
Ard’Time, the company that 60 Millions de Consommateurs reports manufactured the dispenser that killed Burger, issued a recall of such dispensers in 2015 after reports that the plastic head could explode off. However, the Guardian writes that only 25,000 out of the 160,000 dispensers sold were returned.
“We can only regret this accident, even though at this stage a link between the accident and our label has not been established. We do not accept that we have done nothing since February 2013, when the first incident involving an Ard’Time siphon was reported,” an Ard’Time spokesperson told L’Express magazine. “We did all we could to alert everyone. We couldn’t do anymore.”
