Man was ‘awake and conscious’ when his face caught fire during surgery, lawsuit says

The family of an Oregon man who suffered from severe burns after his face caught on fire during surgery is suing the hospital for $900,000.

In December 2022, John Michael Murdoch, 52, was undergoing a procedure as part of his treatment for squamous cell carcinoma, a cancer of the tongue. He checked in to Oregon Health & Science University hospital for a tracheostomy to have a breathing tube inserted into his throat. Part of the preparation for that surgery involved his face being swabbed with isopropyl alcohol for sterilization. But when the alcohol wasn’t given enough time to dry, his face caught on fire when it came into contact with a surgical tool that emitted a spark.

Murdoch lived for six more months after the incident, succumbing to cancer in June 2023. While the burns caused by the surgical fire were not cited as his cause of death, a lawsuit filed in December 2024 said that Murdoch suffered greatly and lived with disfiguring scars and other traumatic wounds to his face that never fully healed before he died. The lawsuit, according to reporting by The Oregonian, stated that Murdoch was “awake and conscious” during the fire.

John’s widow, Toni Murdoch, retained attorney Ron Cheng, who said that the victim was unable to speak but could still express the discomfort and pain he felt following the incident.

Named in the lawsuit was Dr. Adam Howard, a physician whose medical license lapsed in January 2024, according to The Oregonian. The outlet also reported that Howard now works in West Virginia, where his license is active. Oregon Health & Science University is also listed as a defendant along with 10 unnamed surgical staff.

The lawsuit stated that conditions in the operating room where Murdoch was to undergo his procedure were at risk of fire due to the presence of oxygen, ignition sources, and fuel — this is referred to as the “fire triangle” in an alert by the Joint Commission, a health care safety organization, that came out in October 2023.

According to the lawsuit, the tool used on Murdoch that allegedly ignited the fire had a history of setting off sparks.

A spokesperson for Oregon Health & Science University did not provide a comment to The Oregonian due to patient privacy and said that the same condition applied to Howard. Cheng did not respond immediately to Law&Crime for a comment, but he told The Oregonian that “[t]his is a ‘never] event — it never should have happened.”