KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Fire killed one patient and seriously burned another in a room at the Truman Medical Center Tuesday, and smoke that rushed through the hospital forced the evacuation of 50 patients, authorities said. Three nurses, two security officers and a medical student were slightly hurt and treated in the emergency room. One nurse was burned on her leg and arm and the others were treated for smoke inhalation, officials said.
Firefighters broke windows to release heavy smoke in the 280-bed hospital and put their oxygen masks to the faces of patients during the evacuation that included the intensive care unit, authorities said.
'They would pull off their breathing apparatus and put it on the patient in order to pull the patient through,' Fire Department spokesman Harold Knabe said.
Firefighters confined the three-alarm blaze to a patient room on the third floor of the medical center. One patient in the room was killed and the other was seriously burned, Knabe said.
Killed was Dale Wheeler, 39, of Kansas City, who was in the hospital for treatment of hydrocephalus, a drainage on the brain, a hospital spokesman said. Wheeler had been scheduled for surgery Wednesday.
The other patient in the room, Stephen Stacy, 27, of Kansas City, suffered serious burns and was transferred to the University of Kansas Medical Center's burn unit in Kansas City, Kan., said Jim Mongan, executive director of Truman Medical Center.
Stacy, who had been treated at Truman Medical Center for a head trauma, was listed in critical condition Tuesday night with burns over about 40 percent of his body, a nurse supervisor at the university medical center said.
The cause of the fire, which was reported at 5:30 p.m. and brought under control about 6 p.m., was under investigation by the fire marshal and the police department.
The fire started in a 'medical surgical unit' room where smoking is allowed because there was no use of breathing equipment, Mongan said.
'There currently is no physical evidence that he was smoking,' Mongan said.
Firefighters and hospital personnel moved patients from two units on the third floor and one unit on the fourth floor to other areas of the hospital, including the emergency room, Mongan said.
The fire was the first at the hospital, which opened in 1977.
Mayor Richard Berkley said the fire could have resulted in a 'great deal more damage and death' and praised firefighters and hospital personnel.
