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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