Three people have died and more are in hospital after a birthday surprise at a Moscow party had unforeseen consequences. Video shows dry ice being poured into a pool for effect, inadvertently creating a carbon dioxide gas chamber. People breathing in the air full of carbon dioxide could not get enough oxygen and asphyxiated.

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The incident occurred at a Moscow sauna late on Friday, 28 February 2020, Ekaterina Didenko, an Instagram blogger with over a million subscribers, was celebrating her 29th birthday with her family and friends.

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Yekaterina Didenko is a certified pharmacist, blogging about pharmacies and drugs. Ms Didenko is known for posting tips about how to save money on pharmaceutical products on her Instagram page. She has a million followers.



Valentin Didenko, the blogger’s husband, has a higher education technical education. Valentin presented the guest at the Moscow sauna with protective suits and dust masks and googles and invited them to a special event in a pool with water being filled with ‘dry ice’ which is soldid carbon dioxide. When vehicles produce carbon dioxide exhaust on city streets it is called ‘pollution.’

The thick mist was supposed to be a visual treat to take photos and feature on Instragram and other social media.

The video file shows the people at the party crowding around the pool wearing ineffective ‘protective’ suits that were more theatrical than effective. Valentin pours the ‘dry ice’ carbon dioxide into the water and a heavy mist is visible.

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Someone reads safety instructions in a mocking tone warning that ‘dry ice’ is a hazardous substance.

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Valentin then jumps into the pool and disappears beneath the mist to come up again briefly and then goes down below the mist about ten feet away from the crowd at the edge of the pool.

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“He’s dead; he’s not with us anymore,” one person says joking and everyone laughs. Valentin was dead.

It remains unclear where Valentin procured such a large amount of dry ice – and some earlier Instagram posts by Didenko suggested that he might have cooked it himself. Questions have been raised on social media as to whether the two educated people should have known better than to play with dry ice.

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Didenko is now a 29 year old widow with two children to raise without a father. She does have her online notoriety to compensate for her loss and that lonely feeling.

https://archive.is/WSJSd

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The UK BBC also covered the story – https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-51680049

The BBC report claims that the water in the sauna was to hot so the party goers put ‘dry ice’ in the water to cool it down. Does that sound like what saunas do when they want to cool water down? Wouldn’t a sauna have both hot and cold water? Other media, like the woman’s Instragram and other social media, show the couple making ‘dry ice’ in the days before the birthday party at the sauna. The couple dumps the dry ice into the water as a planned event. That’s why people have on the ineffective plastic suits and googles. But, commenters online have demanded a ‘real source’ after seeing the video and pictures, and narrative I have provided in this blog post. They trust the BBC – who clearly got the story wrong.