http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/220258_hospital15.html---------------------------------------------------------
Friday, April 15, 2005
State will look into patient set on fire at Virginia Mason
Hospital confirms alcohol ignited during man's surgery
By ANGELA GALLOWAY
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
State regulators will launch an investigation today into an incident involving a patient who was set on fire during a surgical procedure at Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle, officials said yesterday.
Virginia Mason confirmed yesterday that a patient ignited while on the operating table in late 2003, but said that was not the cause of his death, as had been claimed in an anonymous memo distributed to the media this week.
"The cause of death was related to a very dire emergency around a heart attack the man was having," said Dr. Robert Caplan, medical director of Virginia Mason, who declined to identify the patient. "It just had nothing to do with the fire."
...
The bypass was never performed because the man's heart stopped shortly after the fire, and health workers were unable to resuscitate him, Caplan said.
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OK, I'd be inclined to give the hospital the benefit of the doubt if it weren't for direct knowledge of their profit-driven incompetence. But still, it just seems wrong, somehow.
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