SMS Hospital trauma centre in charge said a short circuit occurred in the trauma ICU, causing a fire that spread quickly and released toxic fumes.
Six patients died in a massive fire that broke out in an intensive care unit (ICU) ward of the Sawai Man Singh (SMS) Hospital of Rajasthan's Jaipur, officials said in the early hours of Monday.
SMS Hospital trauma centre in charge Dr Anurag Dhakad said a short circuit occurred in the trauma ICU, causing a fire that spread quickly and released toxic fumes.
Dr Dhakad said that there were 11 patients at the trauma ICU where the fire broke and spread.
Most of the critical patients were comatose, he said.
“Our trauma centre has two ICUs on the second floor: a trauma ICU and a semi-ICU. We had 24 patients there; 11 in the trauma ICU and 13 in the semi-ICU. A short circuit occurred in the trauma ICU, and the fire spread rapidly, releasing toxic gases,” Dr Anurag Dhakad said, speaking to ANI news agency.
Most of the critical patients were comatose. Our trauma centre team, our nursing officers, and ward boys, immediately rescued them on trolleys and brought as many patients as we could out of the ICU and shifted them to another location. Six of those patients were very critical; we tried very hard to revive them with CPR, but they couldn't be saved," the hospital official said.
Five patients are still critical, he added.
Of the deceased patients, two were women, four were men, he said.
