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coming from an open source, like a nasal cannula or disposable mask, it's dan-
gerously easy to have it build up under drapes and in and around the head and
neck area. That's how at least 70% of surgical fires happen.
• Limit oxygen delivery. Patients often do just as well with fresh air delivered from
an anesthesia machine. But in those unusual cases where patients need supple-
mental oxygen from an open source, ECRI Institute and the Anesthesia Patient
Safety Foundation recommend starting with 30% instead of 40%, 50% or 100%.
With pulse oximetry, you can see whether a patient is getting enough oxygen,
almost in real time, and at that lower level of administration you eliminate the
possibility of a flash oxygen-enriched fire.
• A matter of seconds. Flash fires spread a ripple of flame across skin at a rate of
about 10 feet per second. In other words, when fine body hairs or fuzz on tow-
els ignite, they can go from head to toe in less than a second.
• And just like that, the damage is done. Most surgical fires last only about 4 or 5 sec-
onds, but they change lives forever. Not just the lives of patients, who can, of
course, suffer severe, life-altering burns, but the lives of providers, too. It can
be a devastating emotional experience. I know of one case where an OR team
member actually committed suicide after being involved in a fatal operating
room fire. In other cases, people say, "I don't understand. I've done this surgery
a thousand times and never had a fire. What went wrong?" That's the question
we answer.
OSM
