12 Facts About David Vetter

David Phillip Vetter was an American boy with severe combined immunodeficiency, a hereditary disease that dramatically weakens the immune system.

Immediately after being removed from his mother's uterus, David Vetter entered the plastic germ-free environment that would be his home for most of his life.

David Vetter was baptized a Roman Catholic with sterilized holy water once he had entered the bubble.

When David Vetter was four years old, he discovered that he could poke holes in his bubble using a butterfly needle that was left inside the chamber by mistake.

In 1977, researchers from NASA used their experience with the fabrication of space suits to develop a special suit that would allow David Vetter to get out of his bubble and walk in the outside world.

David Vetter was initially resistant to the suit, and although he later became more comfortable wearing it, he used it only six times.

David Vetter outgrew the suit and never used the replacement one provided for him by NASA.

David Vetter later received a bone marrow transplant from his sister Katherine.

David Vetter died on February 22,1984, from Burkitt lymphoma at age 12.

David Vetter was buried at Conroe Memorial Park, Conroe, Montgomery County, Texas, on February 25,1984, next to his older brother, David Joseph Vetter III.

The Boy in the Plastic Bubble is a 1976 TV movie drama inspired by David Vetter, starring John Travolta.

David Vetter's mother married Kent Demaret, a magazine reporter who had written about her son.