Burn Victim Dies

NewsOn6.com

TULSA, OK - An elderly victim in a Thursday evening duplex fire has died. 

Tulsa Fire Captain Michael Baker says the fire, which caused an estimated $30,000 in damage was related to smoking and that the victim was an oxygen patient.

The victim is identified as 80-year old Robert Hammond. 

The fire happened at around 10:30 p.m. Thursday at the South Glen Apartments at 5611 South Peoria.

Tulsa firefighters arrived to find heavy smoke pouring from the front of a duplex unit.

Hammond, who was confined to a wheelchair, was found unconscious outside the front door with no vital signs. EMSA paramedics were able to revive him and rushed him to a Tulsa hospital where he later died.   

The victim had suffered second and third degree burns on 70 percent of his body.

Baker says this fire fatality comes just one week after National Fire Prevention Week.  He says smoking material is the leading cause of fire deaths in the United States. Roughly one of every four fire deaths per year in 2002-2005 was attributed to smoking materials.