More than eight months after 5-year-old Thomas Cooper died in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber fire at the Oxford Center in Troy, its CEO and three employees are scheduled to appear at court hearings to determine whether there is enough evidence for the criminal charges against them to continue to trial.
On Monday, Sept. 15, Troy’s 52-4 District Judge Maureen McGinness is to hear the evidence against Tamela Peterson, 58, of Brighton, who founded the Oxford Center and served as its CEO.
State Attorney General Dana Nessel charged Peterson in March with second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter in the death of Thomas, who was undergoing his 36th treatment inside a hyperbaric oxygen chamber at the Troy clinic on the morning of Jan. 31 when a spark ignited the fire that killed him.
Also facing criminal charges are the Oxford Center’s operations director, Gary Marken, 66, of Spring Arbor, and its safety and training director, Jeffrey Alan Mosteller, 65, of Clinton Township, who also are charged with second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter.
Aleta Harward Moffitt, 60, of Rochester Hills, was the operator of the chamber on the morning of Thomas’ death and is charged with involuntary manslaughter and intentionally placing false information on a medical record.
Troy Police Detective Danielle Trigger testified earlier this year that the investigation into Thomas’ death “has shown a clear history of dishonesty, interference with investigations, predatory behavior towards vulnerable individuals desperately trying to get treatment and a culture of negligence and unsafe practices that’s gone on for years.”
All four defendants have pleaded not guilty to the charges.
The Oxford Center, which had a second location in Brighton, offered hyperbaric oxygen therapy for a variety of conditions that are not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, including autism, cerebral palsy, cancer and autoimmune diseases. Thomas, his family’s attorney said, was undergoing treatment for ADHD and sleep apnea, which also do not fall within the list of conditions the FDA authorizes for treatment with hyperbaric oxygen therapy.
According to the FDA, the air inside a hyperbaric chamber is made up of 100% pure oxygen in a pressurized environment. That increased air pressure helps a person’s lungs get more oxygen to tissues throughout the body, which can help it heal and fight certain infections.
Treatments have been shown to relieve decompression sickness for scuba divers, to help firefighters, miners and others recover from carbon monoxide poisoning, to improve the success of skin grafts and to speed up the healing of infections, such as diabetic foot ulcers and gangrene, and in treatment of crush injuries. The FDA also has authorized hyperbaric oxygen therapy to treat severe anemia, radiation injuries and some types of complete and sudden hearing and vision loss.
But the Oxford Center is among the alternative medical centers or medical spas that, in recent years, have offered hyperbaric oxygen therapy for conditions that it is not proven to benefit.
Nessel alleges that Peterson and the center’s employees failed to follow the safety protocols established by both the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) and Sechrist, the manufacturer of the hyperbaric chamber.
“To make money as a business, the Oxford Center operated these machines and offered unfounded treatments to patients when medical science contradicted these uses of their services,” Nessel said during a news conference in March. “This was an unscrupulous business, operating powerful machines beyond their manufacturer’s intended term of use on children’s bodies, over and over again, to provide unaccredited and debunked so-called treatments — chiefly because it brought cash into the door.”
Ellen Michaels, an attorney for Moffitt, said earlier this year that her client is “a dedicated professional with many years of experience in the health care industry.” There were 16 letters in support of Moffitt from loved ones, submitted ahead of her arraignment in March.
“We ask for patience and fairness as this process unfolds,” Michaels said at the time.
Contact Kristen Shamus: kshamus@freepress.com. Subscribe to the Detroit Free Press.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Hearings begin Monday for Oxford Center workers charged in boy’s hyperbaric chamber death
Reporting by Kristen Jordan Shamus, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
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