“Border-crossers” among 17 burn patients from fires

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La Jolla:

Late Tuesday, UC San Diego Medical Center’s burn unit received more fire victims.

Among the 17 patients are five firefighters, caught while battling the Harris fire in the border area of south San Diego County, according to Dr. Raul Coimbra, the hospital’s chief of trauma, surgical critical care and burns. This is the county’s only regional burn center.

Two of firefighters, brought in Sunday, were in critical condition with serious burns to their faces and upper extremities and inhalation injuries, caused by breathing in fiery smoke, he said. Three others were in fair-to-good condition. A sixth firefighter was discharged today.

Coimbra said it was tough for the doctors and nurses to see the firefighters in such a bad way.

‘They bring in burn patients every day to us and it’s hard to see them getting hurt,’ he said.

Other patients were civilians who ‘stayed where they were too long,’ Coimbra said. But one group of patients was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.

‘We had a number of people that we call ‘border-crossers’ that got caught in the fire in the area of Tecate,’ he said, explaining that the information came from the paramedics who brought them in.

Social workers must wait for some of these patients, who remain in critical condition, to become well enough to give them some way to contact relatives. ‘Nobody will come to the hospital looking for them,’ he said.

Other info:

*The unit’s patients were burned on 2% to 60% of their bodies. Patients who suffer severe inhalation injuries must be sedated so that a ventilator can breath for them. They also are given fluids and pain medications.

*The unit has 8 intensive care beds and 20 intermediate and floor beds, and can access 26 more surgical intensive care beds.

* Only one admission today, a firefighter.

-- Tracy L. Weber