Elderly woman’s face catches fire during operation and she was conscious

An elderly woman’s face caught fire while conscious during surgery in Australia, leaving her with ‘charred black’ skin.

Marilyn Espinola was working at Sunshine Hospital in St Albans, a suburb 15 miles northwest of Melbourne, on March 2, 2020, when the procedure when south.

A patient was undergoing a bilateral temporal arterial biopsy – the removal of part of an artery for testing using local anaesthesia – when a surgeon suddenly shouted, ‘fire!’, the former nurse claimed.

‘I just heard “fire, fire”,’ she told the Australian news website news.com.au.

‘I couldn’t see any but then he tapped the patient’s face and I saw fire. Her face was just charred black, and the smell.’

An investigation conducted by WorkSafe Victoria, the state’s health and safety regulator, found the patient suffered burns on ‘various parts of their body’.

The regulator’s report, obtained by news.com.au, found that oxygen had been leaking from the patient’s non-rebracing oxygen mask, called a ‘hudson’ mask.

The gas steadily pooled under her garments and, as a probe was being used to remove lesions from her face and neck, it ignited her face mask.

‘A fire spread from the hudson mask to underneath the garments the patient was draped in,’ the report said, ‘causing the patient to sustain burns to various parts of her body.’

Surgeons rushed to remove the mask as the pensioner screamed and the fire spread to Espinola’s foot, she alleged.

‘At that point, I just thought, we’re going to die,’ she said, adding that she was able to put the fire out.

The patient was transferred to the Alfred Hospital’s burns unit and required multiple surgeries to her face, neck, jaw and one of her hands.

Espinola is now suing the hospital after she ran out of the operating room to grab water only to fall and injure her ankle.

She alleged that her injury was not handled properly by hospital administrators and was not included in WorkSafe Victoria’s investigation.

Her injury was only reported to the regulator 18 months later, she said.

Witnessing the incident left the nurse shaken, being diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and suffering panic attacks three to four times a week, she claimed

This has left her unable to work, out of pocket and she now lives with ‘pain and suffering’ – even TV shows can trigger her PTSD.

Espinola is seeking financial compensation.

Erin Jobling, Solicitor at Shine Lawyers, said that the hospital should have safety measures in place for such ‘risky’ operations.

‘As a result of witnessing this incident, our client is unable to return to her career as a nurse, and her trauma symptoms continue to impact on her daily life,’ she said.

‘We are seeking compensation on her behalf for her past and future loss of income, as well as her pain and suffering.’

Western Health, which operates Sunshine Hospital, has been contacted for comment.

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

For more stories like this, check our news page.