On Thanksgiving Day 2022, Kathy Stark watched as her husband of 35 years, Bobby Ray Stark, caught fire at a Nashville hospital. According to Clint Kelly, Kathy Stark’s attorney, the hospital staff was performing cardioversion to restore Bobby Ray’s heart rhythm when a spark ignited the oxygen and set the patient aflame.
Mr. Stark, 64, died of “a combination of cardiovascular disease and thermal burns,” according to a local news report. In May, Kathy Stark filed a malpractice lawsuit in U.S. District Court. Mr. Kelly hopes that the lawsuit will help improve patient safety. Meanwhile, Kathy Stark “goes to bed at night and sees her husband on fire,” Mr. Kelly says. A similar incident occurred last December in the operating room at Oregon Health & Science University, resulting in minor injuries to a patient.
Underreported, but likely dropping
Reliable data on the incidence of surgical fires is lacking because incidents may go unreported over litigation fears, says Jeffrey Feldman, MD, MSE, anesthesiologist at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and chair of the Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation’s Committee on Technology.
The Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority has been tracking surgical fires for decades, however, and experts have used the agency’s data to extrapolate how often they occur in the United States.
In 2005, nationwide incidence was estimated to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 550-600 fires annually, says Barbara G. Malanga, acting director of health care incident investigation and technology consulting at ECRI (formerly the Emergency Care Research Institute). By 2011, that number appeared to have dropped to 200-240 incidents per year.
A similar analysis in 2018 found the incidence may now be as low as 88-105 a year. The drop is likely a result of increased awareness because of educational efforts on the part of the ECRI and the APSF, including a widely disseminated video on fire safety.
The decline of surgical fires “sounds great,” says Dr. Feldman, “except that it’s a 100% preventable complication, and they’re still happening.”
Accidents waiting to happen
How do these fires happen? It comes down to the ‘fire triangle’ often taught in grade school. Fire requires three things: an ignition source, fuel, and oxygen or an oxidizing agent. Ignition sources are plentiful in a surgical suite, including any of a variety of electrical devices commonly used in surgical procedures, including defibrillators. Gowns, gauze, drapes, sponges, oxygen masks, nasal cannulae, a patient’s hair or their clothing – all provide the necessary fuel.
But the key factor for surgical fire risk is the presence of high concentrations of oxygen.
Safety protocols
The best and most obvious way to mitigate risk is to reduce the amount of supplemental oxygen, explains Dr. Feldman.
“Many patients do not require a high concentration of oxygen during sedation,” he says.
When a patient does require a higher concentration for their safety, the APSF and ECRI recommend placing an endotracheal tube or supraglottic airway rather than using an oxygen mask or a nasal cannula. “You want to deliver the oxygen in such a way that high concentration doesn’t exist in the surgical field,” Dr. Feldman says. In cases where supplemental oxygen is necessary, ECRI and APSF recommend reducing the oxygen concentration to less than 30%.
In addition, safety protocols include giving flammable prep solutions time to dry before applying towels or drapes and beginning the procedure. These precautions to ensure the safety of patients take just a moment, says Chester H. Lake Jr, MD, MS, of the department of anesthesiology at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson.