Fire in the OR

[JudoKing01]

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I can't believe I forgot to post this. Yesterday we were doing a tracheostomy and the FIO2 was at 50%, and the surgeon cut through the trachea with the bovie and some flames came out - real small, didn't hurt the patient - so he let her know and she turned the O2 off and put her on room air. So he waits a little bit and goes to use the bovie again and there's this bigass flame that shoots up into the air and catches a Raytex on fire. The surgeon was like WTF?! 😱 And throws it, but it lands on the drape and he's like ****! and chucks it in the basin. Everyone was like WTF do we do? And I'm like you *******es, throw water on it, so I grabbed a basin with water and threw it ontop and put it out. The whole day the CRNA was calling me some kind of hero. I'm like all I did was pour water on a fire, and I only did it first because you dinguses weren't moving.

Whew. Talk about a rush.

 

[droliver]

This has been well documented with multiple case reports in the literature that YOU ABSOLUTELY DO NOT DO TRACH'S WITH THE BOVIE as you enter the airway. I saw this same thing happen twice when I was a junior resident (despite me chiming in about it prior to my upper level and attending in the two episodes) & what will frequently happen is the thin plastic of the cuff will ignite and burn out (if you're lucky). You have absolutely no legs to stand on for malpractice if you get an airway fire doing this manuever

 

[JudoKing01]

Don't tell me that, tell the surgeon that. He's the only guy I've ever seen do it that way. Everyone else uses a knife to cut through the trachea. But that's frickin scary. Imagine if she had been breathing in or something.

 

[Dr.OveR DoSe]

hi
it's my first post here

really i shocked when i was reading the title

but iam wondering how those doc only keep watching

definitly you are a hero

 

[KingTutATL]

you'd think a surgeon would be able to quickly think of a solution like... water + fire= no fire