Horror for children’s parties as 10-year-old girl suffers burns when Russian entertainer pours liquid nitrogen on her during stunt gone wrong
- Entertainer offered mum £60 off after stunt went horribly wrong
A girl’s tenth birthday party turned into a nightmare when a hired entertainer poured liquid nitrogen on the host, leaving her with horrific burns.
The birthday girl screamed in pain as her arms and legs were covered in second-degree burns in what appeared to be a stunt gone wrong.
Now the female entertainer is facing police action in Moscow after the child was rushed to hospital.
The schoolgirl’s distraught mother told how she paid almost £400 for the entertainer at a shopping center in the Russian capital to entertain her daughter and her friends.
She said she was offered a £60 discount to compensate for the mistake.
The woman was filmed pouring liquid nitrogen on the girl as part of an elaborate stunt
Liquid nitrogen is sold cold and usually foams from the surface of relatively warm human skin
The unnamed 10-year-old and her guests were treated to black ice and specialty drinks prepared by the artist.
She appeared to have planned a grand finale that would involve pouring liquid nitrogen on the birthday girl, but got the stunt seriously wrong.
“Nothing was said about the use of liquid nitrogen,” she said.
“A few seconds after the nitrogen hit the birthday girl’s arms and legs, she started screaming that she was in pain,” Shot media reported.
Paramedics were called and treated the crying girl.
But the police are investigating and may file charges against the female party animator.
Liquid nitrogen is a liquid with a very low boiling point of -196°C.
It is used for party tricks but must be handled with extreme care.
Contact can cause burns and frostbite, while accidental inhalation or ingestion leads to asphyxiation and airway or stomach perforations.
Thanks to the Leidenfrost effect, liquid nitrogen can flow over human flesh without freezing.
This causes liquid to produce a layer of insulating vapor that prevents it from coming into direct contact with a surface that is significantly hotter than the liquid’s boiling point.
Because liquid nitrogen is so cold, the body temperature is warm enough that it normally foams off the body’s surface without causing damage.
In 2014, a Russian scientist put a spectacular twist on the then-popular ice bucket challenge, filming himself pouring liquid nitrogen over his head.
Anton Sharypov, 34, a physicist from Krasnoyarsk Krai, filmed the video for a YouTube channel called ‘What happens if we try this…’
Mr Sharypov said before the challenge: ‘I trust the laws of physics, biology and mathematics and I hope nothing will go wrong.’
The poor child suffered second degree burns and was taken to hospital after the accident
Her mother said there was no indication liquid nitrogen would be used at the birthday party
Others have had less luck playing with hypothermic substances. In 2020, three died in Moscow after dry ice was poured into a swimming pool at an influencer’s party.
Dry ice is a solid form of carbon dioxide that can be used for temporary cooling and spectacular effects through fog machines.
It sublimes – changes from a solid to a gas – at -78.5C (-109.2F), making it very dangerous to handle without protection.
At the party in Moscow, dry ice was poured into the pool after guests complained the sauna was too hot and tried to cool down.
Preliminary analysis concluded that three, all around 30 years old, had died of asphyxiation.