PEOPLE – A woman in Paris died due to a suspected nitrogen leak caused by a fatal cryotherapy session, according to multiple reports.
On Monday, April 14, at the On Air gym on the Boulevard Voltaire in Paris, a 29-year-old gym employee supervised a 34-year-old client in the cryotherapy tank, per The Times.
However, both women collapsed when nitrogen reportedly replaced the oxygen in the room, per The Guardian. Nitrogen is an odorless and colorless gas that is typically used in cryotherapy.
Both women went into cardiorespiratory arrest. Emergency services arrived at the scene shortly before 6:30 p.m. local time, per The Guardian. At the time, all 150 people in the gym were evacuated from the building.
The responders were unable to revive the employee, who they believed suffocated. Meanwhile, the client is “between life and death” at the nearby Lariboisière hospital. Three people who attempted to revive the employee were also transported to the hospital.
The Paris prosecutor’s office said the gym and authorities are investigating the cause of death and injury. “An autopsy and toxicology analysis will be carried out to determine the precise cause of death,” a spokesperson said, per CBS News.
The gym has been closed indefinitely.
Cryotherapy is an increasingly popular treatment in which patients expose their bodies to subfreezing temperatures, between -166°F and -230°F, per The Guardian. Its benefits include pain relief, muscle healing, weight loss, reduced inflammation, reducing anxiety and depression, among others, according to Medical News Today.
It is the “reduction of tissue temperature by the withdrawal of heat from the body,” Susan Kwiecien, clinical research manager at Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital’s Nicholas Institute of Sports Medicine and Athletic Trauma, or NISMAT, told CBS News in 2023.
