Looking at the MSNBC article there are 30 serious, disfiguring injuries in 50,000,000 surgeries. That means that there is a 0.00006% chance of a surgical patient having a serious injury from a surgical fire.

Now, 600 out of 300,000,000 people in the U.S. get struck by lightning each year. Thus, there is a 0.0002% chance of living in the U.S. and getting struck by lightning.

Bottom line: You are about 3.3 times more likely to live in the U.S. and get struck by lightning than a surgical patient is to have a serious injury in a surgical fire.

Yes, lets prevent the surgical fires but let’s not go overboard on freak incidents. We don’t discharge patients in plastic wheelchairs to prevent lightning strikes. Or maybe we will once JCAHO looks at the stats.