14 DAY TRIAL // An unidentified man living in the city of Edmonton claims to be the victim of a case of spontaneous human combustion. Otherwise put, the man maintains that, just days ago, he caught fire out of the blue.
Local media says that this alleged case of spontaneous human combustion was reported this past weekend. Thus, it was on Saturday morning that the man woke up to find that he was burning and immediately called the police.
According to Sun News Network, the incident occurred in the first hours of the morning. Around 8 a.m., when officers arrived at the man's house, the supposed spontaneous combustion victim had burns all over his body.
The man, said to be about 20 years old, was rushed to a hospital, where doctors tended to his wounds. Talking to the press, the doctors in charge of handling this case explained that the patient had second-degree burns on about 30% of his body.
After telling the police officers who arrived at his home that he simply woke up to find that he was on fire, the man refused to share any more information with authorities. It is unclear whether he proved more willing to detail the incident to his doctors.
“The complainant isn't saying anything, not co-operating with us. Right now, it's really up in the air. We're as confused as everybody else is on it,” Staff Sergeant Mike Wynnyk reportedly told the press in an interview.
“We're persistent. We don't want to give up with just that. We're going to keep trying to prod him and talk to him and persuade him to give us more,” the police officer went on to comment on this peculiar incident in Edmonton, Canada.
By the looks of it, the moment when the man caught fire without warning and with no apparent cause was witnessed by several family members, who all remember seeing flames engulfing the victim's body. However, these witnesses are not exactly open to conversation either.
“The witnesses aren't giving us any information other than they saw his back on fire. That's it. They're all thinking it was spontaneous human combustion,” Staff Sergeant Mike Wynnyk said in a statement. Still, there are many who aren't buying into this theory.
An investigation is ongoing, and authorities hope it will not be long until they make head and tail of this bizarre incident. Hopefully, the officers looking into this supposed case of spontaneous human combustion will share their findings with the public.
Spontaneous human combustion is a term used to refer to cases of people catching fire with no apparent reason. Some say that such occurrences are paranormal events. A more reasonable explanation is that spontaneous human combustion occurs when body gases escaping through the skin are accidentally ignited.