KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- A patient smoking in his hospital room apparently led to a fire that seriously injured him and killed his roommate, officials said Wednesday.
The blaze at Truman Medical Center began Tuesday evening in a trash can that was being used as an ashtray, fire officials said. Melted tubing fed pure oxygen to the blaze, said Pat Jordan, director of marketing and public relations for Truman Medical Center. Though confined to one patient room at the hospital, the fire forced the evacuation of more than 50 patients. It was the first such incident at the 280-bed hospital that opened in 1977.
Killed in the fire 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 to undergo surgery Wednesday. The other patient in the room, Stephen Stacy, 27, of Kansas City, suffered burns over 50 percent of his body and was in critical condition at the University of Kansas Medical Center's burn unit in Kansas City, Kan. Stacy was being treated at the hospital for a head trauma. Both patients were smokers and visitors had been seen in the room during the day, but it was believed that it was Stacy who was smoking before the fire, said Jim Mongan, the hospital's executive director.
Smoking is allowed in all patient rooms except when oxygen is in use, but unattended patients are not permitted to smoke in bed. Mongan said the medical center's smoking policies are typical of other hospitals' acrossthe country but that the fire will lead to a re-evaluation of the rules.
'That's something we'll surely look very hard at over the next several days and something hospitals elsewhere I'm sure will look at,' Mongan said at a news conference Wednesday.
Firefighters Tuesday had to break out some hospital windows to ventilate heavy smoke during the evacuation of more than 50 patients. The fire was brought under control about 6 p.m.
Fourteen hospital employees, including nurses, medical students and security officers, were treated for smoke inhalation and released. Randi Cominos, 25, the nurse who first discovered the fire, was hospitalized in fair condition with burns.
