A dead during a cryotherapy session in Paris Gymnasium

A gym employee in Paris died and a client was seriously injured after a nitrogen escape during a cryotherapy session. The accident happened on Monday afternoon.

« Autopsy and toxicological analyzes were ordered to accurately determine the cause of death, which took place during a cryotherapy session, » the Paris Attorney’s Office told France Press (AFP).

Police, together with the Labor Inspection, opened an investigation, whose first elements point to a nitrogen escape from the cryotherapy cabin.

The method, called “cold therapy”, consists of placing one person for two or three minutes in cold water tubs or nitrogen cameras where the temperature is below -110 ° C.

Originally intended for high performance athletes to prevent muscle pain after exercise, it is also applied to relieve inflammatory or neurological diseases, being used even without any pathological context.

In recent years, this practice has become fashionable, after several athletes talk about it during the last Olympic games. On social networks, especially at Tiktok, many influencers promote the use of swimming with cold water.

However, “ice is often used for unproven benefits,” as referred to in a 2024 article at the British Journal of Sports Medicine, which warned of the high environmental cost of this method.

Several studies, cited by the defenders of cryotherapy, emphasize their benefits, but are of low quality, as observed in the 2019 analysis of the French Institute of Health and Medical Research.