El Paso woman burns face while smoking with oxygen mask

[TexasTowelie]

A 62-year-old woman received serious burns to her face when oxygen from an oxygen mask ignited while she was smoking Wednesday evening at her home in Northeast El Paso, Fire Department officials said.

The woman had burns to her face, eyes and nasal passages, officials said. Soon after 7 p.m., firefighters went to the woman's home in the 5200 block of Bastille Avenue.

The woman was taken to William Beaumont Army Medical Center in critical condition. Her name was not released.

Firefighters remind residents that is it dangerous to smoke where oxygen is being used because oxygen is very flammable.

Source: http://www.elpasotimes.com/newupdated/ci_22785962/el-paso-woman-burns-face-while-smoking-oxygen

[Warpy]

1. Anything saturated with oxygen doesn't burn so much as it explodes

I've taken care of a lot of men with full beards who grew them to cover the scars from continuing to smoke while on oxygen at home.

The only big hospital fire I've seen was a man on O2 who just had to have a smoke. He was lucky, staff got him out of that room quickly but the room was pretty much gone, a total loss right to the concrete.

Yet every single time I went in to work I'd see somebody in a wheel chair with an oxygen tank and cannula smoking away.

Health insurance/Medicare should pay for e cigs for anybody on oxygen to get that nicotine if they haven't been able to quit. Having them continue to smoke puts not only them but everybody around them in danger.

[Ilsa]

3. I like your idea about

requiring insurance payment for e-sigs in these cases. I bet the cost-benefit analysis reflects that it is worth it.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

6. when the hospice nurses came in and put Gram on oxygen, they said no petroleum products

that was one I didn't know.
http://www.firsttoserve.com/Services/Respiratory/Cylinder_Oxygen_Safety_Precautions/

[Wabbajack_]

2. Darwin award

[COLGATE4]

4. My daughter, while doing a rotation in Plastic

& Reconstructive Surgery saw to a lady who had her face badly burned because she was smoking while using hair spray. The kicker was that this was her second time at bat for the same offense. This time she managed to really screw up what was left of her face after the first go around with the Plastic guys. And, more to the point of this OP, she also was at the local V.A. hospital, where seeing elderly patients with cannulas smoking up a storm was pretty normal. Go figure. Darwin award, indeed.

[Javaman]

5. the syndicated column "News Of The Weird" has relegated this topic as no longer news...

because it happens so often, sadly.

[ashling]

7. AAUUURRRRGH ! ! ! ! !

Just sent this email to the "journalist" who wrote this article:

Just read your story on the woman who was smoking with an oxygen mask.

FYI: Something is flammable if it burns in the presence of oxygen.

Oxygen itself is NOT flammable!

If it was we would all be dead

OXYGEN IS NOT FLAMMABLE ! ! !

To say that an element or compound is flammable means it burns by combining with oxygen, to form oxides. So this definition rules out being able to call oxygen itself flammable.

So, oxygen is not flammable. It cannot burn; it cannot turn into an oxide.


I teach firefighters in my classes frequently. All of the Firefighters I have met are really good guys. But they should know better than to fuel this smoldering argument (pardon the pun)