The Cochran Firm Legal Blog

In Marion, Illinois last week, a surgery patient was burned by a fire in the operating room. The patient, one Janice McCall, died six days later at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee from burn injury complications. The Tennessee medical examiner's office has classified the death as accidental.

The fire occurred at the Heartland Regional Medical Center in Marion. In a statement issued shortly after the incident, Heartland said that "there was an accidental flash fire in one of the hospital's operating rooms" and that it had been extinguished by "necessary and appropriate measures."

However, the statement did not say what might have caused the fire. Nor did it reveal what surgery was being performed for McCall, citing federal laws that bar any public release of a patient's medical information and also citing the family's desire for privacy.

Surgical Fires Very Rare
According to Mark Bruley, vice president for accident and forensic investigation at the ECRI Institute, a federally designated Patient Safety Organization, surgical flash fires occur between 550 and 600 times per year in the U.S. That is a very tiny fraction of the many millions of surgeries that are performed each year. They are usually sparked by electric surgical implements in combination with oxygen build-up.

Drapes are used during surgeries to cover the parts of the patient's body that are not being worked on. Only the treatment area is exposed. Oxygen is given when general anesthesia is used since a patient under general anesthesia cannot breathe alone. In recent years, more electric instruments have been developed for surgical use; and at the same time, the older cloth drapes have been replaced by disposable synthetic drapes that are more flammable.

Oxygen is given by the anesthesiologist, who also calibrates the anesthesia dosage and monitors the patient's vital signs. Bruley and his organization have been concerned about the increased danger and have recommended that anesthesiologists use only as much oxygen as each patient needs, rather than 100 percent for all.

The McCall family has engaged an attorney but no lawsuit has been filed yet. There could be a medical malpractice suit against Heartland and certain individuals involved with this patient's surgery, or perhaps an anesthesia malpractice claim.

If your loved one was hurt by a medical mistake, or if you yourself suffered such injury, please call or email our personal injury attorneys today for a free case evaluation.

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