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3-year-old hospitalized with severe burns in Detroit
Three-year-old Kimora Wilson was left in tears, screaming in pain, after stepping on a scalding hot manhole cover with steam that left second-degree burns all over her body.
(FOX 2) - A birthday celebration in Detroit ended with a trip to the hospital after a 3-year-old suffered burns all over her body.
It's not the first time unsuspecting victims didn't realize the scalding temperature from the city's thousands of manhole covers came with consequences.
Big picture view:
Three-year-old Kimora Wilson was left in tears, screaming in pain, after stepping on a scalding hot manhole cover with steam that left second-degree burns all over her body.
The incident happened near Columbia and Park in downtown Detroit.
Her mother was left distraught by her daughter's injuries - and furious at the lack of warning that she believes could have prevented the injuries.
"We were actually just walking as a family, holding hands," Kiara said. "And then my daughter just started screaming. Screaming, screaming, screaming."
The longtime resident has lived in the city for 35 years. But never has something like this happened during her time in Detroit.
"There was no sign, there was no warning. It was a nice day, hot and humid, you couldn't even see anything coming out," she said.
Dig deeper:
This isn't the first time someone has been left injured by steam-related burns from manholes in Detroit.
In 2019, a class action lawsuit against Detroit Thermal involved 20 people who had suffered serious burns because of the company's steam running under downtown Detroit's streets.
"It's our position in the lawsuit that these companies have failed to warn people about the steam," an attorney said at the time.
Now, six years later, the problem hasn't gone away.
"That's something that should not happen. There's nothing down there that says ‘be careful,’ ‘hazard,' ‘hot.’ Nothing," said Kiara.
What's next:
Kimora is still healing from her injuries.
FOX 2 Detroit has reached out to the company for comment and bey responded with a statement:
"Detroit Thermal puts safety first in our service to downtown Detroit, which dates to the early years of the 20th century. We do maintain a manhole on Columbia Street near Park Avenue. In fact, we had a crew there Wednesday performing a routine inspection and found no safety issues. That said, we take this report seriously and dispatched a team to investigate it Friday afternoon as soon as we heard about it through the media. The family has not reported an issue to us. We hate to see anybody hurt, especially a child enjoying our beautiful downtown with her family. But we can’t say more until we know more, and we have just begun our investigation."
The Source: Interviews with victims and previous reporting was cited in this story.