ASHEBORO, N.C. (AP) - North Carolina’s insurance commissioner is cautioning people to be careful with cigarettes and pipes after a woman with an oxygen tank was badly burned while smoking.
Insurance Commissioner Mike Causey said in a news release that a resident at an assisted-living facility in Asheboro was smoking Saturday when her oxygen tank caught fire. She was airlifted to UNC Hospital in Chapel Hill.
“This is also a tragic reminder of the dangers of smoking while using an oxygen tank and I hope others will learn a valuable lesson from this accident,” Causey said while also wishing her a speedy recovery.
Causey estimated that about one in ten of North Carolina’s 117 fire deaths in 2019 had smoking tobacco products with an oxygen tank as a contributing factor.
Causey said that even after an oxygen tank is turned off, higher concentrations of the gas can remain in the air, making it dangerous to light up.
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