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A former high school student was awarded nearly $60 million in damages on Monday after a Manhattan jury found the city’s Department of Education and his former teacher liable for an accident that left much of his body scarred from third-degree burns.

Five years ago, when the former student, Alonzo Yanes, was a sophomore at Beacon High School, a competitive public school in Manhattan, he was engulfed in flames after a chemistry experiment went awry.

The January 2014 accident jolted the city school system and prompted calls for schools to overhaul how they approached science experiments.

It was one of the most gruesome accidents in a city school in recent years: a large fireball exploded when an experienced science teacher, Anna Poole, conducted an experiment intended to show how salts change color when exposed to methanol.