Tennessee woman's pressure cooker warning: no steam didn't mean safe

WKRN News 2's report follows Elizabeth Angamarca's recovery and explains how blocked steam ports can conceal pressure.

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WKRN News 2 Story of November 11, 2026Trari Newsroom

Why this story? The video opened at a pace of 72,666 views a day, 131 times a normal first day on this channel (554).

Woman needs surgery after pressure cooker incident

Elizabeth Angamarca pressed her pressure cooker's vent valve and saw nothing come out. She took that silence as a sign it was safe to open.

"No steam came out. Nothing came out of it, so I thought, okay, it's safe, nothing's in there," she tells WKRN News 2 from her hospital bed.

When she twisted the lid, hot liquid burst outward. The Centerville, Tennessee, woman suffered second- and third-degree burns. At the time of the report, she was on her ninth day in the hospital, awaiting skin grafting surgery.

The station's short report, "Woman needs surgery after pressure cooker incident," has reached nearly 97,000 views. Its estimated first-day audience was more than a hundred times the channel's usual start for Shorts.

Angamarca shows photographs of pork chops caught in the lid's rim. The report does not establish exactly what caused her incident, but it explains a hazard that can make a cooker seem depressurized when it is not: food blocking the steam port.

Dr. Anne Wagner, director of Vanderbilt's Burn Program, warns that scalding liquid can spread across an entire room. She also urges keeping children out of the kitchen while pressure cookers are operating. The segment closes with a specific precaution: avoid overfilling, because food can clog the steam outlet and give a false impression that pressure has been released.

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