Hand sanitizer, olive oil faulted in fire that burned Ore. girl
PORTLAND, Ore. – Hand sanitizer and olive oil fueled a fire that burned a young girl in a Portland hospital room.
On Feb. 2, 11-year-old Ireland Lane ran out of her hospital room on fire. Her father and hospital staff managed to smother her to put out the flames, although she suffered burns on about 20 percent of her body.
On Monday, a fire investigator said the fire was most likely sparked by static electricity that ignited Ireland’s shirt. Her shirt was saturated with alcohol-based hand sanitizer and olive oil, which helped the fire burn.
“This was an extremely unusual event that could have happened at any health care facility nationwide,” said lead fire investigator Daniel Jones.
Jones explained that Ireland had been working on an art project in her hospital room at Doernbecher Children’s Hospital when the fire started. She had olive oil in her hair and on her shirt at the time. The olive oil had been used to remove some adhesive on her head left over from a medical test.
Ireland had been using hand sanitizer-soaked paper towels from the hallway to clean the oil off her shirt and to clean up after the art project.
Jones said static electricity from the bed sheets likely caught the shirt on fire. He said the cotton from the shirt combined with the oil and the alcohol in the sanitizer was “easily ignited” by the static.
Fire investigators covered a shirt with a similar mixture during a test and were able to ignite it.
Steve Lane, Ireland’s father, told KATU that he was napping in the room when he woke up and saw his daughter was on fire.
“I told the nurses I’d take a nap because I was up with her all night. I woke up to fire.” Lane said. “All I saw was the back end of her going out the door and I was right behind her. Nurses had her down, trying to put her out. One yelled ‘put a fire blanket over her.’ I laid across her back and put the fire out.”
Ireland has faced no shortage of bad luck in her 12 years (her 12th birthday is this Thursday). She has survived cancer that is currently in remission and was back in the hospital this time to treat a head injury.
She has had to undergo skin grafts to treat the burns but is expected to make a full recovery.
Changes at the hospital
Hospital officials said since this incident they have stopped using olive oil to remove adhesive from some patients. Instead, they will use conditioner.
The hospital will continue to use alcohol-based hand sanitizer as recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“Our No. 1 priority is the health and safety of our patients,” said OHSU Physician-in-Chief Stacy Nicholson. He called the fire a “rare, extremely unusual set of circumstances.”
The fire marshal’s report faulted OHSU staff for not pulling a fire alarm right away and alerting the fire department.
Nicholson said the clinicians on the floor thought they didn’t need to because the fire was out and there wasn’t much smoke. He said the hospital is reviewing their actions and policies.
This one is worthy of the âdog ate my homeworkâ. I realize the hospital sees lawyers circling but this story is really the best they could come up with? Bed sheets can set off the hand sanitizer used at all heath care facilities? The answer is to not use olive oil? How about the pure oxygen at every bed side? If sheets can really set off hand sanitizer every health care facility in this county is in real trouble.
I find it surprising they were using Olive Oil actually, that stuff isn't exactly cheap. Conditioner is much cheaper.
I feel terrible for this girl, I sincerely hope she gets better soon, what a horrible accident. :(
A rare combination of events all around. The olive oil would have seemed logical to remove the adhesive, in that it is neutral to the skin. The hand sanitizer is everywhere in health facilities. I know because my wife spent many months at Fred Hutch being treated. Who knew that static electricity could have set off the combination? Fast thinking by the father and the staff likely prevented this being much worse than it could have been.
This is an unfortunate circumstance of fate. No blame need be assigned.
The lessons learned will hopefully lead to better attention to the possibilities.
@Glassman normally, a normal amount of hand sanitizer, would probably not ignite. But she soaked a bunch of paper towels in it, from the hallway dispensers, to try and clean her own shirt.  It is mostly alcohol - guess she or her father did not realize that when she did that. Certainly not the hospital's fault, of course.  Just a bad combo of things.  Glad, too, that they were so quick to get the flames out.  Poor kid.
Oh my gosh! That poor child. I pray her life starts taking a better turn.