Explosion Survivor Says $230 Designer Tracksuit Saved His Life

KEY POINTS

A 26-year-old British man claimed his new $230 Calvin Klein tracksuit saved his life
His face, hands and feet were burned in a gas explosion in April, but the tracksuit allegedly protected the rest of his body
He continues to recover from his 12-day coma

A 26-year-old British student who was put in a 12-day coma after being burned in a gas explosion earlier this year claimed his life was saved by his then-newly bought designer tracksuit.

Jack Marlow, of Walsall, England, had fallen asleep in his mom's summer house on April 17 when a canister for a gas heater exploded at around 2:30 a.m. and started a blaze, the Birmingham Mail reported.

Family members reportedly saw Marlow running out of the flaming outhouse. He was sedated and his airways were artificially kept open during the ride to Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, where he was put in a coma.

"I can't remember a thing," said Marlow, who suffered third-degree burns on his hands and other burns on his face and feet.

"It doesn't seem real when I look at the pictures of me in the coma," he added.

The Black Country student, however, remembered that he had been wearing his new £170 ($230) Calvin Klein tracksuit at the time of the incident.

"I wouldn’t be here now if I hadn’t been wearing a new tracksuit I had bought," Marlow said.

Marlow, who had grafts from his legs to replace the skin on his hands, claimed he did not suffer burns anywhere else on his body because the high quality, fire retardant material blocked the flames. "I literally burned my feet, my hands and my face - but nowhere where the tracksuit covered," he said.

"It's so lucky because usually I'm always wearing shorts and a vest," he added, before noting that he wore the tracksuit "because it was new."

Marlow described the designer tracksuit as being "fire-resistant" and made of "top-notch cotton.”

"The paramedics cut it off me in the ambulance and I'm told it had just gone black," he recalled. "They told my mom I'm lucky I was wearing it."

Marlow continues to recover from his coma, a process he described as "tough."

"My brain activity isn't back to normal yet - that can take 6 to 12 months... I'm still in shock, and so is my body," he explained, before adding that he felt "lucky to be alive."