A Manhattan jury has awarded almost $60 million in damages to a man whose body was left scarred from third-degree burns during a 2014 high school experiment.
The former student, Alonzo Yanes, was left injured over most of his body after his science teacher at Manhattan's Beacon High School, Anna Poole, demonstrated an experiment to show how salts change color when they are exposed to methanol, reports The New York Times.
The jury Monday found the city's Department of Education and Poole responsible for the injuries.
Yanes and one other student were caught in the fire. The other student suffered first-degree burns, but Yanes' injuries left him with burns so deep that they numbed his sweat glands and put him in the hospital for five months, including in a burn unit for two months while he underwent skin graft surgeries.
Yanes declined to comment to The New York Times after the verdict, but during his trial, he testified that he was "hopelessly burning alive, and I couldn’t put myself out, and the pain was so unbearable,” reports The New York Post.
His attorney, Ben Rubinowitz asked for $70 million in damages. The jury awarded $29 million for Yanes' past pain and suffering and another $29 million for rehabilitation over the next 54 years.
A federal agency had warned about the dangers of the experiment, which has caused at least two other accidents nationwide in the last 15 years, just weeks before Yanes was injured.
Nicholas Paolucci, a spokesman for the city’s Law Department, said in a statement that the city respects the jury's verdict but is looking at legal options to reduce the award. The city had argued that Yanes should not get more than $5 million for past damages.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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