On March 19 a healthy young married woman, mother of three children, drove her car, accompanied by a woman friend, from her home to Atlanta—a distance of 40 miles—where she had an appointment for 10: 30 a. m. at a beauty shop for a heatless permanent wave. She arrived a little late, had her hair cut by the proprietor, an oil treatment and her hair prepared for the heatless permanent wave.
Her friend went by the beauty shop about 2:30 p. m. She told her friend to go to a movie or do anything else she had to do, since the treatment would require more time than she had anticipated. A few minutes later, after the preliminary preparations had been completed, the treatment was started by a trained operator. He had planned to continue it for seven minutes. The procedure consisted in spraying the wave solution through a closed circuit