The Burns That Might Not Be Burns

Name: The Burns That Might Not Be Burns
Genre: Documentary

Doctors investigate whether the victims' lesions reveal acidic poison—or a hidden consequence of carbon dioxide-induced coma.

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Transcript

After the Lake Nyos disaster, some victims showed what looked like burns— red skin and blisters. But were they really burns?
On August 21st, 1986, Lake Nyos released carbon dioxide accumulated in its water.
The disaster killed about 1,700 people and 3,500 domestic animals.
At first, rescuers believed the skin changes came from burns caused by acidic gases.
The burn theory weakened when lesions appeared alongside coma states.
A medical study examined clinical findings from 845 survivors of the Lake Nyos disaster.
Those clinical findings were compatible with exposure to an asphyxiant gas.
Further investigation linked the lesions to coma states caused by carbon dioxide in air.
Some survivors showed skin changes after waking from prolonged unconsciousness.
Rescuers observed cutaneous erythema and bullae on an unknown proportion of corpses.
The medical paper on the Lake Nyos disaster was published in BMJ in 1989.
But the medical study did not exclude other toxic factors in the gas release.
A limnic eruption releases a cloud of carbon dioxide from water.

With other toxic factors still not excluded, investigators had to identify exactly what was inside the invisible cloud.

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