Health guru dies as exploding whipped cream dispenser blasts her in chest
A POPULAR fitness blogger has died after a whipped cream dispenser exploded and hit her in the chest.
Rebecca Burger, 33, suffered a heart attack following the incident at her home.
The French blogger, who was also a model, had more than 200,000 followers on social media where she wrote about her healthy lifestyle alongside photographs showing the results of her rigorous fitness regime.
Her death was announced by her family in a statement on her Instagram page, labelling it a ‘domestic accident’, which prompted condolences from tens of thousands of her fans.
The family also posted a photo of the whipped cream dispenser that killed Miss Burger and warned others not to use them. They said: ‘This is an example of the cream siphon which exploded and hit Rebecca’s thorax, causing her death. Don’t use this product in your homes. Tens of thousands of the faulty devices are in circulation.’
The dispensers use a canister of highly pressurised nitrous oxide gas screwed into a lid to instantly whip up cream as a lever is pressed. But Miss Burger’s death in eastern France on Saturday, in which the cap holding the canister exploded, raised further questions over how safe the kitchen gadgets are.
The French government previously issued a warning when a consumer group in the country linked them to dozens of injuries since 2010 ranging from broken
‘Don’t use this in your home’
teeth and tinnitus to multiple fractures.
And according to Le Parisien newspaper, when one manufacturer issued a product recall for potentially faulty dispensers, only 25,000 units were returned out of a total of 160,000 sold – meaning thousands more are still in kitchens. Whipped cream dispensers have more recently become associated with people abusing canisters of nitrous oxide – also known as ‘laughing gas’ or ‘ hippie crack’. They use the dispensers to help release the gas.
There is no suggestion Miss Burger had been using the dispenser for this purpose.
French authorities are investigating her death.
The manufacturer of the dispenser, Ard’time, said it has not been on the market since a ‘first incident implicating a siphon’ in February 2013. It added: ‘Unfortunately, there are still lots of siphons of all brands that remain potentially dangerous as time passes.’