It's just one thing after another!
Posted on 09/17/2009 8:23:48 PM PDT by mlizzy
ST. LOUIS — A southern Illinois woman died after being severely burned in a flash fire while undergoing surgery, a rare but vexing dilemma in operating rooms. Janice McCall, 65, of Energy, Ill., died Sept. 8 at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn., six days after being burned on the operating table at Heartland Regional Medical Center in Marion, Ill., her family's attorney said.
Attorney Robert Howerton said he had requested medical records from the Marion hospital and that he had few details about what happened. He declined to say why McCall was having surgery.
The Tennessee state medical examiner's office said McCall died from complications of thermal burns and classified her death as accidental.
"The family is in shock and suffering their grief," Howerton said Thursday. "Every family has an anchor, and she was it. They're really just devastated."
Heartland said in a statement only that "there was an accidental flash fire in one of the hospital's operating rooms," injuring a patient before being immediately extinguished. The hospital didn't say how the fire started, but it said, without elaborating, that it was responding with "necessary and appropriate measures."
Heartland declined to comment further on the case, citing the family's request for privacy and federal laws barring the public release of patient medical information.
Surgical flash fires are most often are sparked by electric surgical tools when oxygen builds up under surgical drapes. They occur an estimated 550 to 600 times a year — a tiny fraction of the millions of surgeries performed in the U.S. annually — and only kill about one or two people each year, said Mark Bruley, vice president for accident and forensic investigation at the ECRI Institute, a nonprofit health research agency.
Concern over such blazes waned after the 1970s, when highly flammable agents such as ether gave way to safer anesthetics.
But worries have mounted in recent years with increased use of electrosurgical devices and the replacement of cloth hospital drapes with those made of more-flammable, disposable synthetic fabric. Bruley's organization has recommended that anesthesiologists stop using 100 percent oxygen and deliver only what the patient needs, perhaps by diluting the oxygen concentration with room air when surgical tools such as electronic scalpels and cauterizers that could ignite a fire are in use.
"What we've been advocating for years is that the open delivery of oxygen under the drapes essentially has to stop," with some exceptions such as cardiac pacemaker surgery or operations involving a neck artery, Bruley said.
We've had these claims. None as severe as this. Something with the oxygen, I think.
Ask the old timers about the joys of ether.
Anesthesia is a volatile element in surgery.
BS. 100% oxygen works for a reason. During a heart attack it helps save lives. They need to eliminate the other flammable factors.
I'm no expert and maybe they do need to take a closer look at their SOP, but statistically this is pretty slim. While we can strive to, we just can't live in a 100% risk-free world.
RIP to the poor woman.
It's just one thing after another!
RIP.
...worries have mounted in recent years with increased use of electrosurgical devices and the replacement of cloth hospital drapes with those made of more-flammable, disposable synthetic fabric.
Get bathed in molten polyester & you're toast.
And that is why we need frivolous lawsuits. Thanks AP!
It is very rare.
Precisely the reason welders (and others exposed to sparks) utilize heavy cotton garments coupled with thick leather aprons.
Better to just leave that one unsolved. LOL
VICTIM 1, OF THE FIRST DEATH PANEL?
“Application Denied!”
Zot.
Spontaneous human combustion?
but geesh....this is 2009.....this should have been solved long ago.....two deaths are two deaths too many...
They should have taken this into account, due to the fact that she was from Energy and all...
100% air is not allowed under Kennedy Care.
And my doctors wonder why I am so upset with their system, especially my dentists that are using medieval methods.
I had such a traumatic experience having my upper teeth extracted for dentures that I decided to never wear those expensive dentures, too painful, if we ever want to get information from terrorists all we should do is send them to a dentist.
Yeh, but. Given how much surgery costs anyway, what's another 50 bucks or so for sterilized cotton drapes?
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