Wednesday, 2 October 2013

HARD TO WATCH VIDEO… STAFF LET MAN BURN TO DEATH

He came for help and died a fiery death instead. A wheelchair-bound man caught fire at a Chicago nursing home and rolled around frantically until staffers sprayed him with a fire extinguisher and wheeled him outside. The man, Michael Lewis, was smoking in August 2011 on a patio outside Lake Shore HealthCare and Rehabilitation Centre when the lighter in his breast pocket set his shirt ablaze.A surveillance video, obtained by CBS Chicago, shows other patients trying to put out the flames before Lewis rolls himself inside. Lewis is doused with the extinguisher and a staff member rolls him back out the door onto the patio. There he sits for several minutes until a staff member in blue scrubs comes out with an oxygen tank. EMS crews arrive and perform CPR — 10 minutes after the fire began. He later died. Lewis’ outraged family has filed a lawsuit against Lake Shore. Attorney Michael Carter told the Daily News the facility’s only safety precaution for its designated smoking area was a surveillance camera that no one was watching. “No one did anything until they heard the screams,” Carter said. Even then, chaos reigned. Staffers ran up and down the halls in a panic, Carter said. “It’s like a bad cartoon,” he said. Lewis’ sister, Lisa Couch described her brother’s horrific injuries . “He burned to death,” Couch told CBS. “He sustained burns from mid-thigh up to the eyebrows.”She was stunned to see him flail in pain on the patio without a staff member in sight. “The horror — to think my brother is on fire, and no one is there?” The state cited Lake Shore for failing to properly train staff for emergencies, CBS reported.

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