Chief: Oxygen tank ‘may have played a role’ in hospital fire
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PHILIP A. HOLMES/Sun-Gazette
Investigators have ruled that Tuesday's fire at the UPMC Susquehanna Williamsport Regional Medical Center was caused when a female patient's hospital gown caught fire moments after the woman lit a lighter in her sixth-floor room. She was reported in critical condition in a burn unit on Wednesday.
The fire that critically burned a patient at the UPMC Susquehanna Williamsport Regional Medical Center on Tuesday afternoon was caused when the patient's clothes caught fire as she stood up and apparently lit a lighter she had in her hand, according to city fire and police investigators.
"Kudos to the hospital staff, the two nurses and the a third employee involved, who discovered her on fire, put the fire out, removed her from the room and continued to give her care," city Fire Chief Todd Heckman said Wednesday night.
No one was in the room with her when the fire broke out. She still had the lighter in her hand when nurses rushed into the smoke-filled room, according to investigators.
Firefighters responded to the medical facility at 700 High St. about 3:40 p.m. when a fire broke out in the patient's sixth-floor room, in the east wing on the Rural Avenue side of the complex.
The patient, a 66-year-old city woman who was being treated at the hospital for both medical as well as mental health issues, last was reported in critical condition in the burn unit at the Lehigh Valley Regional Medical Center in Allentown, Heckman said. Her identity has not been released.
The two nurses who came to the woman's rescue were treated at the local hospital for burns to their hands, officials said.
Calling them "brave souls," Agent Ed Lucas, the lead city police investigator working the case, said the nurses "got her (the patient) out of that room very quickly," adding that the smoke in the room was "very heavy."
The woman was on oxygen and that too "may have played a role" in the fire, Heckman said.
Investigators said the woman was a smoker, but that two packs of cigarettes and a lighter she brought with her to the hospital had been placed in a lockbox in her room. The lockbox is secured with a combination that only the nurses know.
Smoking is prohibited at the hospital.
The patient had asked for a cigarette on Tuesday morning but was told by medical staff that she was not allowed to have one, Lucas said he was told.
It's unknown how long she had had the second lighter. It's possible she had it since she was admitted to the hospital and the medical staff was unaware of it. Patients may voluntarily turn over possessions that are kept in a lockbox.
Although they are prohibited from searching patients, hospital staff can seize items if they see a patient with something that is not allowed in the facility, according to police.
There was no fire damage to the patient's room, investigators said. Damage was confined to a recliner the woman had been sitting in before she stood up, investigators added.