A patient’s fart apparently was the cause of a fire at the Tokyo Medical Center that damaged an operating room and left the woman with serious burns.
According to a report published by the newspaper USA Today, a woman in her 30s was in surgery and a laser being used on her cervix ignited gas she expelled during the procedure. The flames spread and ignited surgical drapes and causing the fire. The woman was badly burned on her lower extremities, but her condition was not included in any of the reports.
A panel convened to investigate the mishap concluded all the equipment in the operating room was working properly, the paper reported.
“When the patient’s intestinal gas leaked into the space of the operation (room), it ignited with the irradiation of the laser, and the burning spread, eventually reaching the surgical drape and causing the fire,” says the report which was released on Oct. 28 regarding the incident that happened in April.
The Washington Post reported on the incident indicating that for the most part, flatulence is innocuous and more of a source of humor among young boys at sleep-over camps.
However, only about one percent of intestinal gas is methane with the remaining being a combination of carbon dioxide, hydrogen and nitrogen, the Post reported, also indicating that the incident was extraordinarily rare with only about a third of the population being able to produce a combustible level of methane.
An increase of methane gas can build up in a person who eats an abundance of food containing high levels of the gas such as broccoli, cabbage or kale the paper reported.