Summary
The family of John Michael Murdoch is suing Oregon Health and Science University for $900,000 after his face caught fire during a 2022 tracheostomy.
The lawsuit alleges staff failed to let isopropyl alcohol fully dry before using a sparking surgical tool, igniting a fire fueled by oxygen.
Murdoch, allegedly awake during the incident, suffered severe burns and lasting trauma before dying six months later from unrelated causes.
Umm… yeah that’s bad. Not letting an alcohol based skin prep dry is what happens when you combine a shitty management pushing OR staff for faster and faster turnover times, and staff who don’t have the balls to push back, so corners start getting cut.
You don’t fuck around with fire in the OR, 10x so when you’re working around the head, cuz there’s an O2 line right there - the drapes can get saturated with oxygen, then when they do ignite, they go up in flames FAST.
So, you’ll ALWAYS want a bucket of sterile saline with a bulb syringe ready to go so you, so you can dump the whole bucket of there’s an external fire, or squirt saline into the airway if it starts internally (which can happen if there’s enough oxygen). If this guy’s burns were as bad as reported, that tells me they didn’t have saline handy either.
Multiple tiers of negligence going on here.
I swear there’s a Grey’s Anatomy episode about this.
Greys Anatomy is the XKCD of notable medical incidents
