She Fell Asleep With a Cigarette : A Lucky Survivor Recalls Terror, Agony

Nelly Hermann was exhausted. She sat down in a large, stuffed chair in the living room of her Sherman Oaks apartment with a glass of wine and a cigarette, and fell asleep. She awoke five hours later with the left side of her nightgown in flames.

Hermann raced through the apartment, nightgown still burning, to open doors and windows. Then she began throwing water on the chair to extinguish the fire.

“I was not worried about my nightgown burning my body, I was more worried about the chair burning (the building down),” Hermann said. She put out the fire on the chair, but not her nightgown and was severely burned.

Legislation Introduced

Hermann, who now lives in Santa Ana, described her plight Wednesday as legislation was being introduced calling for fire-safe, self-extinguishing cigarettes.

“If the lit part of that cigarette had had the potential to extinguish itself, I would not have been burned, “ said Hermann, 62, who suffered third-degree burns on the left side of her body from the thigh to her chin.

Hermann cannot figure out why she didn’t wake up when the burning began.

“I had a vision in my sleep that another Nelly was standing in front of me and that my head was safe and my whole body was burning,” said Hermann, a tall, white-haired woman. “I stood up and turned around”--and that’s when she woke up to see the chair and her entire nightgown on fire.

Went to Bed

After Hermann had made sure the chair was extinguished, she found that there was nothing left of her nightgown.

“I took my blistered hands, and I took the (still burning) charcoal off my body,” she said. Then she simply cleaned herself up, put on a fresh nightgown and went to bed for 15 minutes until she realized she should call a friend.

Caryl Modrinski, executive director of the Orange County Burn Assn., said Hermann’s reaction to the fire was natural.

“It’s your natural tendency to run from the flame, because you don’t think of putting the fire (on your body) out,” Modrinski said. “With a burn injury or any kind of traumatic incident patients do go into shock. Due to the shock and the trauma, she could have been disoriented.”

After Hermann was taken by paramedics to Sherman Oaks Hospital, she was then transferred to the Los Angeles County USC Medical Center burn unit, where she spent 20 days in intensive care.

Difficult to Treat

“I was in pain like I don’t know what,” she said.

Bruce Achauer, director of the UCI burn center, noted that burn injuries are difficult to treat.

“It’s the lethal fumes that are produced that immediately poison the person,” Achauer said. “They die of hypoxia in a few seconds or minutes, whether or not they are burned.”

Hermann underwent three operations in which doctors had to take grafts from her legs, the only good skin on her body, for her torso. In 21 days, she received seven transfusions.

When Hermann was ready to return home, her son and daughter found out that she had been evicted from her apartment because other tenants had told the landlord, “We don’t want her here because she is a fire hazard,” she said.

Hermann eventually wound up in Santa Ana after her 27-year-old daughter Claire moved to the area from Utah and found a job and an apartment for the two of them.

Gives Moral Support

Claire now cares for her mother and gives her moral support. Every morning, Hermann said, she finds notes from her daughter around the house.

“Just wanted you to know that you are very precious to me and most dear to my heart,” one read. “You are the bravest woman I know. What a conqueror you are! You are beautiful inside and out. Truly a shining light. . . . I love you. Claire.”

After moving to Santa Ana, Hermann sought treatment at the UCI Burn Center, where Achauer told her she would have to have more surgery because the skin under her arm was too tight for her to move her it up and down.

Hermann refused. “If I have surgery again, I will die,” she said.

She says her arms is getting better without the surgery. “I cook, I shop, I carry the laundry basket--that’s why.”

Hermann said she has given up smoking for good. “I can’t even stand the smell.”

Achauer said most victims of cigarette fires are not as lucky as Hermann. They “don’t come to the burn unit, they go directly to the morgue,” he said.