Georgia Teen Burned In School Chemistry Lab Demonstration, District Won’t Pay For His Medical Care

A Georgia teenager was severely burned in a classroom chemistry demonstration that went wrong, and his family says that the school district is refusing to pay his medical bills, NBC News reports.

Back on August 6, Malachi McFadden was in a high school chemistry class at Redan High School when the teacher decided to do a “burning money” experiment — that is, soaking a dollar bill in a solution of half alcohol, half water, and setting it on fire.

The teacher, who would later claim that she had performed this experiment successfully numerous times in her career, allegedly did the experiment multiple times on August 5 and 6, including at least one try in which the experiment didn’t work properly, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

“(The teacher) announced to the class that she was going to conduct this same demonstration, but instead of using alcohol and water, she was going to use ethanol and water,” according to an internal report from the school district about the incident.

As the teacher performed the experiment in front of Malachi and his class, the flame didn’t burn out completely and so she attempted to extinguish it. However, instead of grabbing water, she inadvertently grabbed alcohol. When she threw alcohol on the flames, the fire just got worse.

However, the school district’s report said that it was unclear if she was trying to extinguish the flames, or if she was trying to make them bigger and brighter so the students could see them more clearly.

Malachi, who had his head down on his desk at the time, never saw the flames coming. Once they landed on him, his classmates tried to extinguish the fire with water. A school employee with a fire extinguisher turned up. Meanwhile, as frightened children were running from the room, the teacher reportedly “froze in shock.”

The incident left Malachi with third-degree burns on his face, neck and arms, and he was hospitalized. His injuries will require reconstructive surgeries to return his skin to normal, says the family’s attorney, L. Chris Stewart.

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Now, the family’s attorney says that the DeKalb County School District will not pay for Malachi’s medical care.

“They have no money assigned to pay for when a student’s injured,” Stewart said.

Further, because the surgeries Malachi will have to undergo are reconstructive, the school district is considering them “cosmetic.” The family’s own medical insurance will have to cover the cost of them, the district says.

In a statement, the school district said that it could not comment on pending legal matters.