SANTA ANA, Calif. -- Two Huntington Beach High School students who were burned in a chemistry lab accident during a supervised experiment last Friday are being treated for serious burns. Brian Cross, 17, and Tyler Haureiter, 16, were taken to Western Medical Center-Santa Ana after the fire and then transferred to the Grossman Burn Center in Santa Ana, according to the school. Cross reportedly suffered burns to his chest, neck and face; the Los Angeles times reported on Wednesday that he is in serious condition with second- and third-degree burns over 38 percent of his body, mostly on the upper torso, and Haureiter is in fair condition with head and neck burns. "A lot of prayers are needed," Dr. A. Richard Grossman, who was overseeing the boys' treatment at the hospital's burn center, told The Times. "They never will be the way they were before. But our job is to make them as close (to that) as possible." The two boys were injured during the 7:30 a.m. accident at the school at 1905 Main St., during what the school called "a supervised classroom chemistry lesson." School officials said the students were in a college prep chemistry lab experimenting with a substance similar to rubbing alcohol. Students said there was not an explosion. Grossman told The Times that the injuries, involving methyl alcohol, were caused by fire, not chemicals, and that Cross was closer to the flames than Haureiter, who was "a step or two" back. Martha Werth, a spokeswoman for the Hunting Beach Fire Department, told The Times it appears that the flare-up occurred during a science demonstration for about 40 students. On Friday, it was reported that Cross was scheduled to have the first of two surgeries on Monday and that he would remain sedated until the procedure. "If he needs his own skin grafts, which I think he will on his arms and partially on the neck and ears, we'll be putting his own skin from his thighs on there," Grossman said prior to the surgery.
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