Hialeah man taken to hospital after pressure cooker explodes

Girlfriend says she heard loud 'boom,' saw Pablo Nunez in pain

HIALEAH, Fla. – A Hialeah man was rushed to a hospital Thursday after the pressure cooker he was using exploded, knocking him unconscious. 

"I was telling him, 'Wake up. Wake up. You cannot leave me by myself,'" recalled the man's girlfriend, Juana Rodriguez.

Rodriguez said she ran in a panic to help her boyfriend, Pablo Nunez, after the blast. She told Local 10 News that she heard a "boom" and saw Nunez had been hurt, so she put some cold water on him.

The couple was using the pressure cooker on their barbecue grill outside their Hialeah home off West 29th Street.

She said Nunez was sitting on a chair nearby when the pressure cooker exploded, sending the pot through a wall, the top into the tin ceiling and a handle shooting out, hitting Nunez in the head.

He was rushed to Palmetto General Hospital and was in and out of consciousness. Doctors soon decided to fly him to Jackson Memorial Hospital's Ryder Trauma Center after a CAT scan. 

His condition remains unknown, and relatives are very worried. 

This isn't the first incident involving pressure cookers recently in South Florida.

A girl suffered burns to 60 percent of her body after a pressure cooker exploded inside of a Fort Lauderdale home in September. A grandmother also survived a freak accident before that when an explosion sent the lid of her pressure cooker flying across the kitchen. Her injury was so severe that she lost part of her leg.

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About the Author:

Andrew Perez is a South Florida native who joined the Local 10 News team in May 2014.