To the Burn Center of the Hospital of St. Luki hospitalized two patients with severe burns caused by battery explosions
As a result of battery explosions in apartments, to the Hospital of St. Lukas with severe body burns has already hospitalized two patients, to whom doctors had to transplant skin.
37-year-old Andriy lived with his wife and child in a Lviv apartment building. Through the Internet, I purchased a hybrid system with an inverter and lithium batteries from an electric car. The next day I planned to buy a fire extinguisher, but I didn’t have time.
In the middle of the night, the man woke up from a noise in the next room, where he was charging the battery. The man approached the system and saw that the battery had boiled. Another moment – and an explosion rang out.
Andriy tried to put out the flames with his own hands, but when he realized that he could not do it himself, he threw a blanket over his wife and child and took them out of the apartment. While waiting for the firemen to arrive, I tried to turn on the water from the water heater hoses in order to put out the fire in the apartment at least a little. As a result, he received 15% burns of his body: face, upper and lower limbs, feet.
In order to treat the deepest wounds, doctors had to cut out the area of the most severe lesions of the skin. At the same time, they transplanted part of the healthy skin from the patient’s thigh to the feet and hands.
“This is a technique common throughout the world, which makes it possible to speed up the process of recovery and rehabilitation after an injury many times over. Specialists of our Burn Center have only recently been using this,” the First Medical Association of Lviv notes.
Therefore, on the third day after the transplant, Andrii is being prepared for discharge.
Another patient is 30-year-old Roman, also a resident of a Lviv apartment building. Due to the power outage a few months ago, I decided to install an alternative light source in the apartment. On the advice of acquaintances, the man bought a charger with an inverter and batteries from an electric car.
I connected the system, checked and went to sleep. However, a few hours later he woke up from the noise in the room where the batteries were. He approached the devices and saw that one of them had boiled. Another moment – and the shock wave threw the man onto the balcony. Everything around caught fire.
Roman ran out of the burning apartment and ran for the fire extinguisher. And when he returned, there was another explosion – that of the second battery. As a result of the fire, the apartment with an area of 70 m2 burned to the ground. Roman and his wife barely got out of the burning apartment.
The man received about 20% of his body burns. His arms, legs, and back were engulfed in flames. There are deep wounds on the hands and feet. Doctors’ conclusion: a skin transplant is needed.
“The patient was anesthetized and the next day the injured skin was excised at once, and healthy skin was taken from the thigh area and transplanted to the back, arms and legs.
On the fifth day after the operation, the doctors made a bandage and made sure that everything was fine, and the skin had healed. Already on the tenth day, the man went to his relatives, where he will now temporarily live with his wife.
Our patients regret that they were tempted by the popular trend of installing an alternative power supply system, and call on others: under no circumstances to buy car batteries and not to install them in their homes,” says the First Medical Association of Lviv.
Meanwhile, the Lviv City Council once again calls on residents to follow the rules for using generators.