Local News

COON RAPIDS, Minn. (WCCO) ― A newborn boy was in critical but stable condition Wednesday after suffering second- and third-degree burns from a flame that ignited while he was under an oxygen hood at Mercy Hospital in Coon Rapids.

Allina Hospital and Clinics issued a statement saying the infant was in an open-topped bassinet under a warmer on Tuesday morning when the accident happened. The statement said the baby was wearing an oxygen hood and something in the oxygen-enriched environment ignited into flame.

An oxygen hood is a device that fits over a baby's face to supply additional oxygen.

The baby was just 12 hours old when he was burned.

Nursing staff were with the baby at the time and immediately put out the fire, Allina said. Allina spokesman David Kanihan declined to release the specific brand of oxygen hood and warmer being used, citing an ongoing investigation.

Within two hours of the incident, paramedics transferred the baby, who was born three weeks premature and weighs about 8 pounds, to Hennepin County Medical Center, where he was in the neonatal intensive care unit. He was in a medically induced coma and on a ventilator but was responding to treatment, said Dr. Leslie Smith, assistant director of the hospital's Burn Center.

Smith told reporters the boy is responding to treatment and "most likely" will survive, but suffered second- and third-degree burns on 17 to 18 percent of his body, including his head, shoulders, part of his face and the tops of his hands.

"Well I think everybody was concerned it is a life threatening injury to be burned technically 10 percent on a child is a large burn," said Smith. "The good news is that there was no inhalation injury."

Smith and Dr. George Peltier, a plastic and reconstructive surgeon at the Burn Center, said it's too early to tell if the infant will need surgery for skin grafts, but they expected he would remain in the hospital for at least a few weeks.

"This is our first experience with burns at this age," Peltier said.

Chris Messerly, an attorney for the family, said the fire shouldn't have happened.

However, Messerly said the family is focused on letting their baby heal and is not yet looking at taking legal action.

"They're angry, they're sad, they're worried. They have all of these emotions coming together," said Messerly. "The whole focus of which is will our son ever get better and if so what will the future hold for him with burns on his face, on his chest, on his arms, on his head."

The attorney said the baby's first name is Maverick, but did not release the baby's last name or identify the family, who live north of Elk River. He said the family has one other child, a daughter.

The mother was also transferred from Mercy to HCMC to continue recovering from her Caesarian section and be near her son, Messerly said.

"The family is doing remarkably well under the circumstances," Messerly said.

He also said that the mother has not held her child yet, and that's all she wants to do for the first time.

Investigators with the Coon Rapids Fire Department spent the morning at the hospital, trying to figure out how the fire started, and Smith and Messerly did not discuss the cause.

According to Coon Rapids Fire Chief John Piper, the investigation is not focusing on any specific item that may have caused the fire, but at all of the items that were in the warmer -- including an IV, oxygen hood and blankets.

Officials said the cause of the fire will not immediately be determined.

An Allina spokesman said he was unaware of any other hospital experiencing such an event.

However, the fire dangers of oxygen in hospitals and other health care facilities are well known. Fires happen during surgery, and they even happen when patients who are on oxygen try to smoke.

The ECRI Institute, a nonprofit health research agency based in suburban Philadelphia, estimates that 50 to 100 fires annually ignite during surgeries performed in the U.S. Many surgical tools generate heat, and oxygen can build up in operating rooms, particularly under surgical drapes.

The institute says those fires kill one to two people annually, and 20 percent of the affected patients suffer serious injuries. The American Society of Anesthesiologists was developing guidelines for preventing surgical fires.

 

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