NEW LONDON (AP) - A paramedic using a defibrillator in an attempt to restart the heart of a New London woman instead set her on fire, police said.
A spark from the machine ignited the clothes of 47-year-old Brenda Jewett inside an ambulance Monday night, police said.
Jewett was pronounced dead at Lawrence & Memorial Hospital.
Neither the paramedic nor other members of the ambulance crew were injured by the flames, which were doused with a fire extinguisher.
Jewett's husband had called for the ambulance after finding his wife unconscious on their couch Monday evening.
The cause of Jewett's death is expected to be determined by an autopsy Wednesday.
The New London County State' s Attorney' s Office has initiated an investigation, asking the State Police Major Crime Squad, state and local fire marshals and the state Office of Emergency Medical Services to examine the fire.
"I've been in this business 20 years and I've never heard of something like this," Leonard Guercia Jr., director of the state Emergency Medical Services, told The Day of New London.
Mary Newman, of the National Center for Early Defibrillation in Pittsburgh, said her group has never received a report of a defibrillator starting a fire. She said she doubted that it was the fire or the defibrillator that caused Jewett's death.
"When you defibrillate a person, they are already dead," she said. "The purpose of the defibrillator is to bring them back tolife. So you can't make them any worse off than they are."
(Copyright 2004 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved)
A spark from the machine ignited the clothes of 47-year-old Brenda Jewett inside an ambulance Monday night, police said.
Jewett was pronounced dead at Lawrence & Memorial Hospital.
Neither the paramedic nor other members of the ambulance crew were injured by the flames, which were doused with a fire extinguisher.
Jewett's husband had called for the ambulance after finding his wife unconscious on their couch Monday evening.
The cause of Jewett's death is expected to be determined by an autopsy Wednesday.
The New London County State' s Attorney' s Office has initiated an investigation, asking the State Police Major Crime Squad, state and local fire marshals and the state Office of Emergency Medical Services to examine the fire.
"I've been in this business 20 years and I've never heard of something like this," Leonard Guercia Jr., director of the state Emergency Medical Services, told The Day of New London.
Mary Newman, of the National Center for Early Defibrillation in Pittsburgh, said her group has never received a report of a defibrillator starting a fire. She said she doubted that it was the fire or the defibrillator that caused Jewett's death.
"When you defibrillate a person, they are already dead," she said. "The purpose of the defibrillator is to bring them back tolife. So you can't make them any worse off than they are."
(Copyright 2004 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved)
