Nurses who fought blaze saved lives after patient set fire to bed
A PATIENT at Walsall Manor Hospital torched a room, putting dozens of lives at risk, health chiefs have revealed.
Now fast-acting staff have spoken for the first time of how they sprang into action.
The patient with mental health issues started the blaze after barricading himself into a side room of Ward 17 this summer. The man, who was attached to a drip, reportedly torched clothing before the flames quickly spread to a chair and his bed.
Ward 17 manager Michelle Crutchley said she went into “coping mode” after the patient barricaded himself in at around 7am.
She described how one sister, Dicelyn Gante, managed to break through the door, cut the patient free from his drip and drag him to safety unharmed.
She added: “I’d only been on a fire training course the day before.”
Despite the dangerous conditions Ms Crutchley then entered the room.
She said flames and smoke filled the room, with ceiling lights “buckling in the heat”.
She then tackled the flames with fellow staff member Sister Michelle Williams, who explained how vulnerable patients on the ward were.
She said: “We’re a respiratory ward so you can imagine the effect the smoke would have had on our patients. We used three extinguishers while the rest of the ward staff made sure the other patients were reassured and calmed.”
West Midlands Fire Service have commended the nursing staff ’s life-saving actions. A spokesperson for the service said the fire could have “potentially resulted in the death of a patient” and could have spread to the rest of the ward if the nursing staff hadn’t acted “so quickly”.
Wendy Lear, Walsall Healthcare’s Divisional Director of Nursing for Medicine said the two Michelles were “a credit” to the hospital: “We are proud to have them working with us in Walsall,” she added. The trust confirmed it carries out mental capacity assessments with patients.
“It believed this was an isolated incident which could not have been predicted. The exact date of the incident has not been revealed in order to protect the identity of the patient involved.”