Seattle man catches fire during surgery

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N15691869.htm

SEATTLE, April 15 (Reuters) - Seattle police launched an investigation on Friday to determine how a patient undergoing emergency heart surgery caught on fire at a local hospital in 2003.

The male patient, who was not identified, went up in flames after alcohol poured on his skin was ignited by a surgical instrument.

The patient died after the surgery but that was due to heart failure and not the fire, said Dr. Robert Caplan, medical quality director of Virginia Mason.

Caplan said fires are known to occur in operating rooms although they were extremely rare.

[mn9driver]

1. Definitely not his day.

I've had days almost--but maybe not quite---as bad.

[Redstone]

2. You only get to have ONE day as bad as his was.

Redstone

[flamingyouth]

3. That's ... not my hospital of choice

This is also the facility where the MRI machine was almost destroyed back around the holidays when someone came in to polish the floors with a steel cleaning machine. :D

[Dogmudgeon]

8. L-O-effin'-L

I'm trying to imagine that scene, possibly played by Buster Keaton ...

--p!

[flamingyouth]

9. I know! "Yes, folks, the 'M' stands for 'magnetic'"!

:rofl:

[xray s]

4. Must have been caused by a frivolous lawsuit

only explaination officially sanctioned in America today.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

5. "fires are known to occur in operating rooms"

That's simply an everyday fact.

:patriot:

[Robeson]

6. He comes in for a bad heart to begin with, and then is set on fire?!!?...

...and then dies, but the surgeon says it has nothing to do with his heart? UNFREAKINGBELIEVABLE!!!! This is why doctors and hospitals should have their collective ass sued through the roof when shit like this happens. And what the F is that doctor going to say after his patient was set on fire? All he was thinking about was a GD lawsuit...

[Thor_MN]

10. Well to be honest, it was the marching band and the steamroller

that really contributed.

That "personal responsibility" meme of the GOP seems to really have taken root in Corporate Amerika,,,,

[Robeson]

12. By-the-way...your avatar is kick-ass!!!.....

.....;-)

[ScreamingMeemie]

15. Not lately it doesn't...does it now....?

Poor Vikings. :P


Go Pack!

[Robeson]

17. Poor Vikings? Do you mean as when we kicked the Pukers ass...

...and totally humiliated them in last seasons playoff game at the sacred LAMBEAU FIELD....? How soon we forget. :evilgrin:

Vikings 31, Packers 17. SWEEEEEET!!!!!

[ScreamingMeemie]

18. Ummmm....No Super Bowl win. You can jump around as much as

you like. We're still better. :P

[Robeson]

19. Uh, all I can gauge is by the last time we played.....

...and the results were, you're not....

[ScreamingMeemie]

24. No Super Bowl Win!

gleeful heehee....Vikings= Choke...gasp...sputter.

[Robeson]

26. As long as we're better than the Puke......

...the World is right. And as stated, we are....:D

[ScreamingMeemie]

27. Ummmm....Packers = 3 Super Bowl Wins.

You got a ways to go. ;)

[Robeson]

29. Memories.....like the corners of our minds.....misty water colored....

...memories....of the way, THEY were.........

Typical Pack fan, living in yesteryear....But what have they done for you lately, other than have a humiliating loss on national TV last season to my Vikings - at the sacred LAMBEAU FIELD no less. The Puke's will even be worse this year. An aging FAV-REH, who we consistantly picked off at will with a shitty defense, Now, he'll have to actually face a Vikings defense that has actually rebuilt. It'll only get worse for you. Forget about them, and cross on over. You know you want to follow the purple.

BTW, thanks for Darren Sharper, though I have no doubt, you've all convinced yourselves on how you didn't need a talented safety anyway....

Don't worry about us, you just need to worry about beating out Chicago or Detroit, so that you don't finish at the bottom of the division this year..... :P Oh, but I forgot, you've always got the memories.....of the way, they were.....

[ScreamingMeemie]

30. Come back when you have a Lombardi trophy. No humiliation here...but

heck of a lot in Minnesota. It's a pity really. The money that's been shelled out on a worthless team. Much like Detroit. At least Chicago has history. :P

Poor little Minnesota fans...thinking that this will be the year...choke...gasp...


What's more humiliating than losing in the last seconds to the Cardinals? Not much.

[Robeson]

31. Living in the past.....so sad........come visit us in the 21st century...

...we're waiting for you, and we are willing to accept you....

ah, but you have the memories....the memories...the memories...its almost like a Tennessee Williams play....

[ScreamingMeemie]

32. Nope. Again. No trophy. No talk. Pity...really.

;) and all that time wasted on a brat like Randy Moss...giggle.

[Robeson]

33. Moss was boss. I don't feel bad at all...Look at all the seasons you've..

...wasted on an aging interception machine like FAAHH-VREEHH! But, I'll admit, he's a media darling, who is never criticized for his increasingly erratic play. But I'm a progressive. I'll let the conservatives live in yesteryear. Your team is toast. Enjoy the memories. They're all you're going to have for a long, long time....The future in the North, is colored Purple. Enjoy it. Rejoice in it. Besides, the Vikings uniforms are alot prettier...:P

You live in the past, I'll live in the future....

[Maddy McCall]

7. Well, hell, if I were on fire during surgery, I'd have a heart attack, too

I see a major lawsuit around the corner.

[hippiechick]

37. No shit !

:wow:

[baldguy]

41. Hey, you can't SUE HIM man!

That might cost some rich insurence company some money. You can't do that, man.

[miss_kitty]

11. 'Dr. Robert Caplan, medical quality director of Virginia Mason'

medical quality director? They have one of those there?

Other errors found at hospital

"Top administrators at Virginia Mason Medical Center, who vowed to create a model patient-safety program after the November death of a patient injected with an unlabeled toxic fluid, acknowledged that more than a month later, they discovered improperly labeled liquids being used in a procedure.

In addition, twice last year the hospital reported to the state "adverse events" involving the unanticipated death or permanent loss of function by a patient. The reports provide no details.

In late 2003, the hospital also reported an adverse event involving an operating-room fire that burned a heart-attack patient during surgery. The fire was extinguished immediately, caused only minor injuries to the man's shoulder and was not responsible for the man's death, said Dr. Robert Caplan, the hospital's director of quality..."

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002242105_virginiamason15m.html

[Elidor]

14. Another case of kill-me-here don't-take-me-to-the-hospital

[Bossy Monkey]

36. What do you have to do to get fired in this place?

Or at least demoted to say, snack machine quality director?

[LeftCoast]

13. Very sad

OR's are actually quite flammable though with all of the O2 and other flamable gasses. I'm not sure why alcohol would be in an OR though. That seems odd. In every hospital I've been in, they would not use alcohol for antibiotic surgery prep. Instead they normally use betadine or chlorhexidine.

[miss_kitty]

16. The story is doctor did not want to wait for the non-flammable stuff

that's the local news story.

[LeftCoast]

20. That Dr may have just lost his license then

He/she probably went against hospital policy. In fact, the whole team is probably in deep shit. This kind of thing just makes me cringe - I'm in nursing school right now and there are just so many things to pay attention to. People just have no idea.

[Robeson]

21. My wife has been an RN for 25 years. And you're right, I could give you..

...horror stories. Legal and medical negligence happens all the time. I've head about them. She just tries to do her job, and correct the inefficiencies she sees elsewhere, from nurses and doctors alike.

[LeftCoast]

22. It's a hard job - but the rewards are worth it I think

I got to send one of my patients home last night with her newborn. I can still remember how dad was just glowing. Still makes me smile thinking about it.

[Robeson]

25. Thats what she tries to get out of it.....

...you know, the good that she is personally doing. But she would be the first to say, that Bush trying to pass laws to set limits on suits, is pure b.s. She has come home shaken before, and told me that if she had been the family that had been a victim of some of the stuff she saw, she would sue the doctor and hospitals ass off.

[miss_kitty]

34. It happened in 2003

I think the reasons it has come up now is the letter, and the woman who died in November 2004, due to the injection of the toxin (I heard them say it was an antiseptic cleanser-maybe a non-flammable skin cleaner) The amazing thing about the injection incident was they had a press release out on it, and said "Mea culpa." They may have announced it before the woman died.

And as a former patient, I have only an inkling of the detail nurses have to keep track of.

[jmowreader]

35. You mean they don't keep it in the OR suite?

You'd think they'd have a jug of Betadine and one of chlorhexidine at least just sitting on the shelf in the OR suite. They use it all the time.

[WilliamPitt]

23. Doc, I have this bunion...OH JESUS THAT HURTS

Yes. Me = wrong.

But that hospital = suck.

[AntiCoup2K4]

28. Paging Dr. Beavis. Dr. Beavis to OR 2, Stat!

Fire! Fire! Fire! Huh huh huh huh!

[DS1]

38. Most people go to the gym to burn off calories

[cmf]

39. What makes me so angry is that

this is the same hospital that injected a woman with antiseptic instead of marker dye when she went in for treatment of a brain aneurysm. She died, too. I remember when that story came out, and it just made me so angry because it was such a stupid mistake.

[miss_kitty]

40. Oh they're all bad

The UWMC, where I had loadsa work done left 13" flat retractors in about 5 patients. And there was the big Medicare rip-off as well.