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May 3, 2008 12:51 pm US/Eastern
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Md. Woman Sounds The Alarm On Operating Room Fires
BALTIMORE (WJZ) ―
Fires in operating rooms scar or even kill hundreds of patients a year. Now, one Marylander is sounding the alarm.
Sally Thorner speaks with the daughter of woman who went in for routine surgery and came out a burn victim.
Catherine Reuter is a former kindergarten teacher and nun. In December 2002, the Frederick County woman went in for a routine tracheotomy at a Washington, D.C. hospital. She came out a burn victim.
Reuter suffered second and third-degree burns to her face and airway.
"The surgeon said, 'We had an incident in the operating room. Your mom's alive, she's stable, but she was burned,'" said Cathy Lake, Reuter's daughter. "I was absolutely horrified that they had done that to my mother."
Reuter suffered for two years with infections and kidney failure before dying of the complications from a surgical fire.
A
WJZ Investigation found this happens hundreds of times each year in hundreds of hospitals across the country. The doctors in your OR may not be trained to handle a fire when it ignites.
"After my mother was burned, I don't think they knew what to do," said Lake.
The fact is, the operating room is a volatile place.
Dr. John Ulatowski heads the Anesthesiology and Critical Care Department at Johns Hopkins Hospital.
"There are three elements necessary for a fire. One is a heat source, like electric cautery or laser. Another is fuel like a surgical drape or surgical sponge and finally an oxidant like oxygen and certain anesthesia gases," said Ulatowski.
Since anesthesiologists are providing oxygen in nearly every surgery, all it takes is a simple spark to bring the three sides of the fire triangle together.
Now, medical facilities dictate whether they even have surgical fire training.
But with this just published set of guidelines, the American Society of Anesthesiologists is hoping to set a national standard for preventing and managing operating room fires.
One of the recommendations is anesthesiologists should reduce the amount of oxygen they give patients, while surgeons are using a fuel source.
Cathy honors her mother's memory with a website she works on from her Boonsboro, Md. home.
Surgicalfire.org illustrates the tragedy that is 100 percent preventable.
"You need to be comfortable talking with your physician and simply say have you received any surgical fire training," said Lake. "If what happened to my mom can happen and we learn nothing from it, what a waste of a life."
Patients should note that surgeries around the head and neck are particularly risky because cutting tools will be used close to the nose or mouth where the oxygen is delivered.
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