Woman Severely Burned After Her Face Catches Fire during Routine Surgery

A Florida woman was critically injured during what was supposed to be a routine surgery, according to MSNBC News. 29-year-old Kim Grice went in for surgery to remove growths from her head and a slash fire severely burned her face and neck. Her mother, Ann Grice, was shocked to learn that her daughter caught on fire during the procedure.

“Art 8 a.m. two patients were back there,” Ann said. “One was my daughter. At 10:20 emergency medical and the fire department pulled up and there was a fifty-fifty chance that they were coming through the doors for my daughter. I went to the desk and no one would tell me what was wrong.

“I am in shock,” she told the Crestview News Bulletin. “This is not what happens with a routine outpatient surgery. She had headaches and the doctor was going to remove three cysts and biopsy them. But something went bad wrong and my daughter is now in a burn unit with burn specialists and I still don’t know what happened. No one will tell me why or how this happened to her.”

Experts say that this was not an isolated incident, and fires flare in operating rooms as much as 650 times a year. North Okaloosa Medical Center is investigating the accident.

“The hospital deeply regrets today’s event in which a patient sustained burns during a procedure in our ambulatory surgery center,” the hospital said in a released statement. “The staff took immediate steps to respond, including moving the patient to the hospital’s emergency department. The patient was fully alert and able to converse with the ED staff during the examination and initial treatment. She was stabilized and then transferred to the University of South Alabama Medical Center for further care.”

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