This is the oxygen chamber Michael Jackson famously used to combat the ravages of time – uncovered by DailyMailTV gathering dust in the back of a warehouse.
The King of Pop posed for a now-legendary photo showing him lay inside the $100,000 glass chamber in 1986.
He was quoted at the time as saying: ‘I’ll live to be at least 150.’
Now, just days after the 10th anniversary of Jackson’s death, DailyMailTV found the blue machine hidden away in a shipping container at a warehouse in southern California.
The Sechrist 2500B hyperbaric oxygen chamber (HBO) has ended up at a company called Hyperbaric Modular Systems, which specializes in the alternative treatment.
Can a hyperbaric oxygen chamber help you live forever?
A hyperbaric oxygen machine works by supplying the body with three times more oxygen and saturating the body with it.
According to Dr. Ian K Smith, there are multiple benefits of the machine.
‘People were using hyperbaric chambers to rejuvenate their skin. It increases the amount of blood flow. The belief is it can help tissue.’
That hypoxic tissue gets oxygen and promotes the healing process while fighting bacteria.
The machine is typically used for divers to treat decompression sickness and burn victims by administering oxygen to the wounds at pressure to speed up healing.
Staying in the chamber for longer than one to two hours could cause oxygen toxicity in the body, resulting in death.
Our reporter was able to discover exactly what the Heal the World singer experienced when he used the equipment 33 years ago.
DailyMailTV also established the history of the chamber and how he ended up in Jackson’s hands.
In 1984, the singer suffered second and third degree burns to his face and scalp after his hair caught fire on the set of a Pepsi commercial.
After the accident, he was treated at the Brotman Memorial Hospital in Culver City, California.
The following year Jackson settled out of court with Pepsi over his injuries and was given $1.5million.
The star then donated all the money to establish the Michael Jackson Burn Center for Children at the hospital.
It was with this money that the hospital bought the $100,000 oxygen chamber to treat burn victims.
HBO treatment improves the healing time of burns by administering oxygen to the wounds at pressure.
When the unit arrived at the new burns center Jackson visited the hospital and was pictured lying horizontal in the chamber with his eyes closed.
The equipment had never before been seen by the general public and when The National Enquirer ran the photos months later, they caused a sensation.
Jackson was at the height of his fame when the magazine claimed the regimen was part of a wacky plan to keep himself alive forever.
The National Enquirer quoted the singer as saying: ‘I’ve taken several long naps in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber and when I awoke I felt like a new person – I’ve never felt better.
‘I definitely want one for my home so I can sleep in it at night. I plan to get one immediately. I want to live to see world peace, a world without hunger, a world where children and all mankind know no suffering.
‘I believe if I treat my body properly I’ll live to be at least 150.’
It was later revealed that Jackson himself had leaked the pictures as a publicity stunt to promote his film Captain Eo.
Michael Levine, a prominent Hollywood publicist, confirmed that he helped Jackson and his manager Frank DiLeo plant the story in the press.
Despite the planted story, Jackson did in fact request his very own hyperbaric oxygen chamber in 1994.
HBO treatment was used for years to treat divers with decompression sickness, but doctors later discovered other applications.
While in the chamber the patient breathes three times more oxygen than breathing air and the entire body is also fully immersed in oxygen.
Adrian Garay, President/CEO of Hyperbaric Modular Systems (HMS), a specialist company which makes large commercial HBO chambers that can hold up to 12 people, tells DailyMailTV: ‘In 1994 Michael expressed interest in having his own personal chamber.
‘He approached Brotman Hospital and they sold the chamber he had donated back to Michael and it was installed in Neverland.
‘Michael did not sleep in the chamber as doing so would cause oxygen toxicity in the body and he would have died.
‘Instead he probably used the chamber at home for one or two hours at a time for health reasons.’
Garay claims that some people in the industry say Jackson bought the chamber for the purification of his body by oxygen, a kind of toxic flush.
‘It makes sense, with hyperbaric medicine you’re getting three times more oxygen so you’re saturating the body with it, so that hypoxic tissue is now getting oxygen and it’s promoting the healing process and also fighting bacteria.’
But many still believe the star – who was obsessed with Peter Pan – was desperate to slow down the aging process.
‘Ironically, 30 years on, scientists have actually proved that the chamber can help with anti-aging,’ said Mr Garay.
‘Scientific studies have found that HBO treatment helps promote the growth of older cells, effectively slowing down the aging process. So maybe Michael was right after all.’
Adrian Garay, President/CEO of Hyperbaric Modular Systems (HMS), tells DailyMailTV that scientists have actually proven that the chamber can help with anti-aging
There’s around 1,000 hyperbaric oxygen chambers in the US, about 750 of which are mono-place chambers or single person chambers like this one.
The Sechrist 2500B is now obsolete having been replaced with more modern versions.
HMS makes chambers mainly for the medical world, for diving facilities or tunneling operations and ships them around the world.
Garay said his company first acquired Jackson’s chamber more than 25 years ago.
It’s unclear what Jackson did with his chamber once he finished with it, but it eventually found its way to another hospital in Santa Monica.
HMS were then given the chamber as a form of payment for work they had done for that hospital – and along with it came tales of its previous owner.
Today the 33-year-old chamber is still in prime condition and kept under a dust sheet in a shipping container at the firm’s depot in National City, near San Diego.
Garay, 38, who has worked his way up through the company for decades, said the chamber provides a quirky point of interest for visitors, although he confesses he would consider selling it to the right buyer.
He added: ‘People are still finding out what this wonderful thing called oxygen does in the body, as an industry we’re growing every year.
I STRUGGLED INTO JACKO’S OXYGEN CHAMBER DESPITE BEING 6FT 5: DAILYMAIL.COM’S RYAN PARRY GOES INSIDE KING OF POP’S ETERNAL LIFE MACHINE
It’s an intimidating futuristic glass cylinder more at home in a sci-fi movie than in your front room.
So I set out to experience why the King of Pop liked to spend his time inside his very own hyperbaric oxygen chamber.
I slid in through the clunky vault like door and immediately began to feel claustrophobic behind the two-inch thick glass – being 6ft 5ins didn’t help matters either. (Jacko was an easier to fit 5ft 9ins.)
Patients would typically slide inside the narrow cylinder from a hospital gurney, but with none in sight I had to negotiate my way in from a tiny step ladder. It wasn’t the most graceful of entrances but I managed to do it – all in the name of art of course.
HOW TO GET INTO JACKO’S OXYGEN MACHINE (AND GET OUT!)
You can hear little from outside the chamber and everything looks slightly distorted through the glass – I’m sure goldfish feel the same.
The heavy door slammed shut behind my head and I was trapped in my own surreal space which felt almost like a vacuum.
Patients can communicate via intercom, as well as watch TV, listen to music, or just take a nap.
Once the oxygen is turned on, the changing pressure is the same as that felt in an airplane during take-off or landing.
Patients are told to equalize the ear/sinus pressure by yawning, swallowing, or attempting to blow through the nose while holding it shut.
During the treatment you breath up to three times as much oxygen to tissues as would breathing room air.
It’s believed the treatment, which lasts one to two hours, can often feel euphoric and energy boosting.
Unfortunately, the oxygen wasn’t connected inside the Hyperbaric Modular Systems warehouse – so I’ll have to try again to see if I really will live to 150.
Article cited from DAILYMAIL UK