The Region - News from April 21, 1986

An 8-year-old boy was burned when a caustic substance splashed on him while he was playing with friends. The youngsters had found a one-gallon container of an unidentified substance under a house at 8213 S. Hoover St., and the boy was injured when the container ruptured and the contents splashed on him, Los Angeles City Fire Department spokesman Jim Wells said. The boy was taken to Martin Luther King Jr.-Drew Medical Center with second-degree burns, Wells said. The boy was in stable condition, a nursing supervisor said, but she declined to release his name. The Los Angeles County Health Department took the material to determine what it is and where it might have come from, Wells said.