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Man Catches on Fire in Heart Surgery
Although it happened in October 2003, it has only now been revealed that a man undergoing coronary bypass surgery at Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle caught fire during the operation, report The Seattle-Post Intelligencer and Reuters. He later died, although hospital officials insist the fire was not the cause of his death.

"The cause of death was related to a very dire emergency around a heart attack the man was having," Dr. Robert Caplan, medical director of Virginia Mason, told Post-Intelligencer reporter Angela Galloway. "It just had nothing to do with the fire." The patient has not been identified. The situation has come to light now from an anonymous memo alleging a pattern of unsafe health care practices at the hospital. The memo, which was distributed to a variety of media outlets on Virginia Mason letterhead, claimed the man did die from the effects of the fire.

The hospital has confirmed that the patient, who was suffering a severe heart attack at the time, was ignited while on the operating table, resulting in first- and second-degree burns on his shoulder. The fire occurred when the electrocauterizer, a tool surgeons use to open skin, ignited alcohol that had been poured on the patient during the pre-op process. Caplan described the fire as "very small." Staff members immediately extinguished it. Because the patient's heart stopped soon after the fire, the bypass was never performed. Doctors were unable to resuscitate him. The hospital has changed the type of preparation solution it now uses.

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