Indian baby bursts into flames 'spontaneously'

A six-day-old infant in Chennai, India, was rushed to hospital after he ‘spontaneously combusted’, alleged his mother.

His feet simply burst into flames, reported Daily Mail. Doctors including paediatricians, psychiatrists and plastic surgeons are running tests on the boy to ascertain the cause.

Meanwhile, the baby’s 22-year-old mother says this is not the first experience she has had. In 2013, her older child – then three months old – had similarly combusted spontaneously. In fact, she claims her older child has combusted four times.

However, then the doctors who conducted tests on the boy concluded that it was not a spontaneous incident and suspected the boy may have been abused or been in accidental fire.

Meanwhile, some scientists say in spontaneous human combustion (SHC) a human body can become an ‘inside out’ candle. The person’s clothes are the wick, while their body fat is the wax or flammable substance, that keeps the blaze going, reported Daily Mail. Some say static electricity could cause the needed spark.

In this particular case, doctors are yet to determine the exact cause. They have sent out wound swabs for tests, the Dean of the hospital was quoted as saying.

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