Beverly Betts had warned her mother that if she continued to smoke while using her oxygen tank, something terrible would happen.
Others warned her, too. Lacy Plumlee kept insisting nothing would happen.
On April 2, something did.
Plumlee was smoking while using her oxygen tank at about 12:30 a.m. when a fire broke out. She was badly burned on her face, head and hand.
The oxygen tank exploded, blowing out two picture windows and starting a fire that caused an estimated $35,000 in damage to her Planeview house. Plumlee, who turned 83 last month in the hospital, is now under the care of her daughter June in Piedmont, and remains on a ventilator.
"She's still with us, still alert," June Short said of her mother. "It's a sad situation."
A 43-year-old Wichita woman died under similar circumstances in early June. That makes four deaths and two serious injuries over the past three years caused by fires ignited by someone who was smoking cigarettes while using oxygen for medical purposes, Wichita Fire Department officials said.
Those numbers bother fire officials, because they consider the tragedies avoidable.
"There's still a handful of people out there who for whatever reason feel compelled to smoke while they're still on home oxygen," said Capt. Brad Crisp, an arson investigator for the Wichita Fire Department. "They're in that predicament most of the time from smoking. It's a hard habit to quit, I'm sure.
"If they have to smoke, they need to get away from that oxygen source."
As people inhale oxygen through their mask or a canula -- a tube inserted into the nose -- unused oxygen collects in their clothing, Crisp said. If an open flame ignites the clothing or tubing, the fire will spread quickly because it has a rich source of oxygen to feed it.
Betts was so worried that her mother would start a fire while smoking on oxygen that she would take all the lighters and matches with her whenever she left the rental house they shared on 47th Street South.
Then Plumlee returned to her own home in Planeview, and the fire happened just three weeks later.
"It's like a little bomb blowing up, that oxygen tank," Betts said.
The living room and kitchen were gutted by the explosion and fire, Short said.
"I don't know how she managed to get out to the porch" where neighbors found her, Short said.
It was a tragedy that could easily have been prevented, Betts and Short said. That's why they want to warn others about the dangers of people smoking while using oxygen.
"I didn't want anything bad to happen to my mom," Betts said, "but it did."
