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The medical investigation of Rahul, a three-month old boy who has been called a fire baby because his parents claimed he burst into flames has ended with tests disproving the theory and again raising doubts of child abuse. The doctors at Kilpauk Medical College and Hospital conducted all possible tests including a chromosome test, gene analysis, skin biopsy, etc. They even invited a team from Sastra University to check if the boy s skin emitted inflammable gases but there was no evidence of spontaneous combustion. I still stand by what I said that there is no such thing as spontaneous human combustion. The possibility of child abuse exists and needs to be explored, said Dr J Jagan Mohan, head of the burns department at KMCH.
Activists pointed out that unless a parent or a doctor approached a welfare committee could they check if the baby is a victim of abuse. I haven't seen the child, but I don't think that abuse is possible in this case. We cannot unnecessarily suspect the parents, said social activist A Narayanan. The doctors should give continuous medical support to the child. Experts should speak to the parents separately before the doctors arrive at any conclusion.
His parents meanwhile are receiving counselling at the hospital and the child is under observation in the ICU.
Is spontaneous human combustion real?
For long the scientific community has doubted even the existence of a condition like this. As of 1995, there have only been 200 reported cases in the last 300 years. The most common scientific explanation is that food is converted into methane inside the body which when released by body pores can lead to a fire triggered by various sources.
At most times it s caused by an unnoticeable small source like a candle or a cigarette which goes undetected. An extensive two-year research project involving 30 cases of alleged SHC conducted in 1984 found that all the cases actually had plausible sources for ignition that was left out of popular accounts. At other times, the victim was either drunk or incapacitated in some other way which would make the victim unable to respond properly to the fire. As Benjamin Radford, science writer and deputy editor of the science magazine Skeptical Inquirer, asks If SHC is a real phenomenon (and not the result of an elderly or infirm person being too close to a flame source), why doesn t it happen more often? There are 6 billion people in the world, and yet we don t see reports of people bursting into flame while walking down the street, attending football games, or sipping a coffee at a local Starbucks.