FIRE IN OXYGEN TENT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23084, 9 January 1937, Page 22

FIRE IN OXYGEN TENT

ELDERLY MAN’S DEATH UNUSUAL HOSPITAL ACCIDENT A medical device designed to prolong life caused inadvertently the death of an aged man in a Brooklyn (New York) hospital. The victim was Aaron Handler, 73 years old, a cardiac patient at the Jewish Hospital of Brooklyn. He died two hours after he was found in his room helpless under a burning oxygen tent with his beard and bedclothes aflame. He was alone in the room at the time of the accident. Dr Lester Friedland, an interne, who was in an adjoining room, heard a muffled report, and rushed out to investigate, He was joined by several nurses, who had also heard the explosion. They found the man’s bed afire. He was struggling feebly under the lent, the sides of which were licked by rapidly mounting flames fed by the flowing oxygen. Dr Friedland began to beat the flames with his bare hands. A nurse ran out to fetch blankets. Another hastened to turn off the flow from the oxygen tank. Two others began to beat the burning bedclothes. The rescuers succeeded in extinguishing the fire within a few minutes and so quietly that none of the 500 other patients in the hospital were aware that anything was wrong. Handler was taken to another room, where lie died in two hours, despite the efforts of the hospital staff. In fighting the fire, Dr Friedland received first-degree burns of both hands. He was treated by a fellow interne, but the burns were not serious. Hospital authorities notified the police of the Grand avenue station, and Detective Emil Moldenhauef investigated. He reported that the fire had apparently been caused by a short circuit or by a spark thrown off by the electric motor that controlled the oxygen feeding. • _ Although the police and hospital officials both listed the death as accidental, they differed as to the causes of the fataiity. The police report said death was due to first and' second degree burns. A statement issued by Dr Morris Hinenburg, executive director of the hospital, announced that “ death was not due directly to the fire, but to the cardiac condition of the patient.” . , Dr Romeo W. Auerbach, deputy medical examiner for Kings 9°T n ty’ announced after an autopsy that death was due.“both to first and second degree hums and to hardening of the arteries of the heart.” He expressed the opinion that the fire had hastened the man’s, death.