Incubator Fire Badly Burns Minn. Newborn

[dawngloves]

How the heck did this happen???

MINNEAPOLIS - Oxygen ignited inside a special hood worn by a newborn infant in a hospital, burning the boy's head and face and leaving him in critical condition.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080124/ap_on_re_us/newborn_incubator_fire

[sirI, MSN, APRN, NP]

Post #10 merged with existing thread.

[dawngloves, BSN, RN]

I'm now wondering if there was a malfunction with his temp probe? Maybe it came off and the heater set the hood on fire? I wonder how hot it would have to be?

[PremieOne]

I am wondering how this could happen!! Normally your oxyhood has oxygen or air going through humidity and so the gas is humidified. We all know how wet the oxyhood gets along with the blankets and clothing surrounding the infant. I have been a nurse for 42 years and have never seen or heard of this ever happening before. When we first used oxyhoods they were not always humidified, but we did have times where we had static electricity problems when touching the warmer. That stopped when we started wearing metal strips on the backs of our shoes. I think we should try to figure out what caused it so it will never happen again. PremieOne

[babiesRmylife]

I talked to an RT on our unit & they thought that it could be static electricity, or that most oxygen systems have temp probes & they thought that maybe this feature was defective on this particular Oxy.hood. I'm sure it could be a number of things, but it definately makes you cautious to using an oxy.hood anytime soon.

[FlyingScot, RN]

http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/chem03/chem03291.htm

I'm still going with something falling off the heater arm into an oxygen enriched environment and igniting the blankets. In order to have fire you need two things: a fuel and oxygen. Oxygen is not a fuel and does not burn. See website above. There is no way static electricity started this unless the blankets were perhaps soaked in gasoline. Again static electricity is not a fuel. The possibility that there was an electrical short in the hood's temp probe wire igniting the blankets also is very plausible. There is a likelihood that when whatever ignited caught there was a "whoosh" noise and a flash which would have made it appear that the oxygen exploded but was actually a result of the rapid ignition and burning of the fuel source (ie. oxygen saturated blankets) and the consumption of the oxygen during the ignition. I'm sorry if I'm being a pain about this but some of you are going to face parents of babies in hoods and you need to be able to give them accurate information in order to allay their very real and justifiable fears. What happened in Minnesota was a tragic combination of very unusual circumstances that will not likely happen again in yours or my lifetimes..

[dawngloves, BSN, RN]

http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/chem03/chem03291.htm

Oxygen is not a fuel and does not burn.

But you can't have fire without it.

"So oxygen really is as distinctively important as fuel, in making fires."

[prmenrs, RN]

"...What happened in Minnesota was a tragic combination of very unusual circumstances that will not likely happen again in yours or my lifetimes..."

Dear Lord, I certainly hope and pray not. What a tragedy.