A LAS VEGAS spa where an employee was found frozen to death inside a liquid nitrogen chamber used for cryotherapy treatments wasn’t licensed by the city, county or state to perform cosmetic or other procedures, authorities have said.
The disclosures came after the death of 24-year-old Chelsea Patricia Ake-Salvacion, who was found last Tuesday in a chamber used to provide the increasingly popular but largely unregulated treatments for pain and other conditions.
“When they found her, she was rock solid frozen,” Albert Ake, the dead woman’s uncle, said in an interview from his home in Reno, Nevada.
Las Vegas police said the death doesn’t appear to be suspicious and the case was closed without a criminal investigation.
Ake said he was told his niece texted her boyfriend on the night before she was found dead and said she was going to use the cryotherapy chamber at the Rejuvenice spa.
She was also seen on security video locking the salon, he said.
Her co-worker arrived the following day and noticed Ake-Salvacion’s car in the parking lot and her belongings in the business, Ake said.
Ake said he was troubled by reports that his niece misused the cryotherapy chamber or made a mistake. He said he was told she died within moments.
Something went wrong. It’s not operator error if she died within seconds.
Clark County Coroner John Fudenberg said no reports about Ake-Salvacion’s death had been released by his office as of Tuesday. A determination of her cause of death was awaiting the results of toxicology tests.
Cryotherapy involves placing users inside a chamber with sub-zero temperatures for just a minute or two to relieve pain.
Athletes who have long used ice baths to ease their aches and pains have turned to whole body cryotherapy as a quicker way to recover after exercise or competition.
The treatment also is promoted as aiding weight loss, improving healing and increasing blood circulation, leading some salons to offer cryotherapy facials as an anti-aging remedy. Liquid nitrogen has long been used to treat and remove warts.
Rejuvenice Cryotherapy advertised 30-minute sessions for $60 through an Internet discount, with the regular price set at about $100.
The company has locations in Las Vegas and unincorporated Clark County and planned to open a third facility, officials said.
Ake-Salvacion grew up in Hawaii and moved to Las Vegas more than two years ago with her boyfriend, who recently returned to Hawaii to take a job, her uncle said.
She planned to follow after another year at the spa and hoped to open a similar business of her own.
“She was a good spirit and loved everyone,” Ake said. “She had the true aloha spirit. Aloha is love.”
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