Lit cigarette kills woman with oxygen tank

A WOMAN died after she ‘’blew herself up’’ at a hospice when her cigarette set fire to her oxygen tank, an inquest heard.

Sharon Reid, who had terminal lung cancer, was thrown backwards out of her wheelchair. Medical officers believe the 62-year-old died instantly.

Her inquest heard she was diagnosed with lung cancer in February last year, and was receiving treatment at St Margaret’s Hospice in Yeovil, Somerset, when she died on Sept 17 last year. Lynn Bromfield, who was working as a healthcare assistant at the hospice, saw Ms Reid go up in flames.

“The call bell panel was flashing for the smoking room,” she said. “I went along, I looked through the window. To my horror, I saw Sharon sat in the room, she was on fire. I could see the flames. There was nothing I could do. I pressed the alarm to call for more help.”

Ms Bromfield had pushed Ms Reid’s wheelchair into the smoking room just moments before. She said she was not aware of the risks of smoking around a combustible gas.

Ms Bromfield said she had received “some” fire safety training but “hadn’t made the connection between smoking and oxygen”.

“Sharon said to me ‘I can’t go without my oxygen’,” she told Tony Williams, Senior Somerset Coroner.

The inquest continues.