Patient Catches Fire During Surgery At NYU Medical Center

[DoGoodThenGo]

State investigators slammed NYU Langone Medical Center for lapses in safety procedures and communications that resulted in an operating-room fire while a patient was undergoing surgery, The Post has learned.

Probers cited a communications failure between the surgeon and anesthesiologist,” who wasn't aware a certain instrument would be used in the presence of oxygen,” according to the state Health Department's report on the 2014 blaze which was obtained by The Post under a Freedom of Information Law request.

Hospital probed after patient catches fire during surgery | New York Post

[Dany102]

Holy cow! I hope the patient wasn't too badly injured by this...

D.

[toomuchbaloney]

Do you suppose they didn't ground the patient and used the cautery?

[Rose_Queen, BSN, MSN, RN]

Do you suppose they didn't ground the patient and used the cautery?

Most cautery units have a fail safe where if a grounding pad isn't placed or isn't in contact with enough skin it won't fire. I've had to crawl under the drapes a time or two to reattach a grounding pad where a corner of it became loose.

Based on statistics of OR fires, my guess would be that this was an ENT surgery where the cautery was used in an oxygen rich environment.

[klone, MSN, RN]

It sounds like it was a special instrument that can't be used when there is oxygen, not just a plain old Bovey. Any idea what it might be?

[FurBabyMom, MSN, RN]

I agree with Rose Queen. Generators for monopolar electrocatuery have a built in "safe" to protect patients - they have to have a ground pad applied fully/making sufficient contact. I, too, have had to crawl around and make sure gounding pads are making sufficient contact with the patient. The other option, though less commonly used, for grounding of monopolar electrocautery is an under body pad that distributes the return current more than grounding pads do. That's really what your pad is doing - completing the circuit.

I would agree with Rose Queen on the based on statistics it's probably an ENT procedure.

I read the Post article. In what they quoted, everything is so redacted that it's hard to tell what the device may have been. It could well have been a laser. There is no grounding for a laser, and the only "safety" for it is generally a human...