Two Lessons About Smoke Inhalation From a Restaurant Fire

In Fort Peck, Montana in late October, a fire destroyed a historic landmark restaurant in eastern Montana and the owner was hospitalized after suffering smoke inhalation.

Fort Peck’s Gateway Inn Bar and Supper Club, built in 1933, caught fire at about 11:30 a.m. on a Saturday, just as the lunch crowd was coming in. An assistant fire chief said that several customers were in the building at the time, but were able to escape.

A local sheriff also said that the restaurant owner made a near-fatal mistake by running back into the building to get some keys–that’s when he suffered smoke inhalation. Although he was listed in good condition just one day after the fire, the owner’s actions were very risky.

There are two lessons you should take from this story. First, anytime you go to a restaurant–or into any public building–you should locate all the exits you could possibly use in case of fire. At a restaurant in particular, a fire in the kitchen is not such a rare occurrence, and can spread very quickly because of grease and other flammable items located in a restaurant kitchen. The speed of such a fire might mean you will not have time to look for an exit once you realize there is an emergency, and you could suffer severe burns or smoke inhalation even before you reach a nearby door or window.

Second, once you escape from a building that has fire and smoke inside, NEVER go back inside to retrieve items. A burning building has become a death trap, and you can easily be overcome by smoke in just a few seconds. And once you become disoriented or unconscious from smoke inhalation, your odds of survival go down to almost zero because of the hydrogen cyanide, carbon monoxide, and other poison gases in the smoke–even if you get out of the building.

If you or someone you know suffers a burn injury or a smoke inhalation injury, you should call Kramer & Pollack LLP in Mineola, NY so that the personal injury attorneys in that firm can determine whether another party has legal liability for injuries suffered, and if the injured party has a solid legal case.