A cancer patient died after a fire broke out at the National Taiwan University Hospital while he was undergoing surgery, the hospital said yesterday.
The man, suffering from esophageal cancer, was one of two patients being operated on when a fire broke out at around 7:22pm on Wednesday in the operating room on the fourth floor of the hospital’s new building, the hospital said.
The automatic sprinkler system was activated after the fire started, but smoke continued to bellow into the operating theaters where six surgeons and five nurses were performing surgery on the patient and another patient suffering from heart disease.
Both patients were under general anesthetic at the time.
The cancer patient was rushed to the intensive care ward of the hospital and urgently fitted with an ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation) device, which is similar to a heart-lung machine, but he died just after midnight, the hospital said.
The 11 medical professionals and the other patient suffered various degrees of smoke inhalation. All were in a stable condition after receiving treatment, the hospital said.
The hospital evacuated 800 patients and urgently arranged hospital transfers for 23 patients who had to rely on respirators.
The fire was put out at 9:10pm.
Alain Robert, known as the "French Spider-Man," praised Alex Honnold as exceptionally well-prepared after the US climber completed a free solo ascent of Taipei 101 yesterday. Robert said Honnold's ascent of the 508m-tall skyscraper in just more than one-and-a-half hours without using safety ropes or equipment was a remarkable achievement. "This is my life," he said in an interview conducted in French, adding that he liked the feeling of being "on the edge of danger." The 63-year-old Frenchman climbed Taipei 101 using ropes in December 2004, taking about four hours to reach the top. On a one-to-10 scale of difficulty, Robert said Taipei 101
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US climber Alex Honnold left Taiwan this morning a day after completing a free-solo ascent of Taipei 101, a feat that drew cheers from onlookers and gained widespread international attention. Honnold yesterday scaled the 101-story skyscraper without a rope or safety harness. The climb — the highest urban free-solo ascent ever attempted — took just more than 90 minutes and was streamed live on Netflix. It was covered by major international news outlets including CNN, the New York Times, the Guardian and the Wall Street Journal. As Honnold prepared to leave Taiwan today, he attracted a crowd when he and his wife, Sanni,
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