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This fitness blogger was killed by an exploding whipped cream dispenser

Rebecca, who was 33, suffered cardiac arrest and died after the accident, despite receiving medical attention.

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Rebecca Burger’s family recently announced her death on Facebook and Instagram, saying she was killed by “an accident in the home.”

But another post on her Instagram account showed a photo of a whipped cream dispenser with the warning that it was faulty and had "exploded and struck Rebecca's chest, causing her death.” The post also said that tens of thousands of “defective devices” are still out there.

According to the BBC, Rebecca, who was 33, suffered cardiac arrest and died after the accident, despite receiving medical attention. Rebecca had a big following online, with 55,000 fans on Facebook and 154,000 Instagram followers.

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While Rebecca’s death is shocking, other people in France have suffered injuries as a result of exploding whipped cream dispensers, from broken teeth and tinnitus (a condition that causes ringing in a person’s ears) to fractures and the loss of an eye, per the BBC.

One victim told RTL radio, per the BBC, that they were lucky after their accident: "I had six broken ribs, and my sternum was broken. At the hospital, I was told that if the shock and blast had been facing the heart, I would be dead now."

According to the BBC, France’s government office for consumers has issued a warning about the dispenser, noting that accidents can occur at any time, even after someone has been using a dispenser for years. The Washington Post reports that the dispenser is manufactured by a company called Ard'Time, and has been recalled for safety reasons.

It sounds crazy that you could actually be killed by something as seemingly innocent as a whipped cream dispenser, but women’s health expert Jennifer Wider, M.D., says it’s possible, just “extremely rare.”

“Whipped cream dispensers use nitrous oxide canisters,” she explains. “The gas gets released and the container is pressurized.” If that extreme pressure hits you in the chest, it can cause a heart attack and eventually death, she says.

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The pressure would also have to hit you in exactly the wrong spot, Wider says. Here's why: The heart beats because of an electrical impulse generated at the top of the organ in the atrium. This electrical signal passes down the atrium and then into the ventricle, where it causes the heart to pump. The signal can be disrupted from disease but, in some very rare cases, can be disrupted from an external force.

Again, Wider stresses that this is “very rare,” but you should probably be extra cautious if you use one of these at home.

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