Alarms for flammable gas

[mshields]

In 517.32, under systems permitted on the Life Safety system (I'm going by 2017 incidentally), it lists alarm systems for nonflammable medical gases. What about flammable gases. Why just nonflammable. I know that they used to use flammable gases for anesthesia long ago and that now no such gases are used for anesthesia. Does that mean that NO flammable gases are used at all in hospitals? Is that why?

 

[petersonra]

Maybe alarm systems for flammable gases are powered from systems covered in article 700. Just a guess.

 

[steve66]

Nobody in the US uses flammable medical gases, or at least that's what I've been told.

If anyone still uses flammable medical gasses, it would probably be a third world country,

(BTW - I think I have an idea how the stories about spontaneous human combustion started, and I'll bet flammable medical gasses played a big part.)

Anyhow, but I'm just guessing - maybe flammable gasses were always in gas bottles, and never piped in? It wouldn't really make much sense to pipe flammable gasses through a hospital. So if there aren't any piping systems, there isn't any need for wired alarms with hardwired power.

On a slightly different subject - I also just saw an article about a patient that died after staff used a flammable antiseptic liquid, which ignited after the use of an electric scalpel.

 

[StarCat]

Spontaneous Human Combustion is a " Metaphysical " affair in most cases. On the electric scalpel side of things, you need to read about what happened when blood to be transfused was heated up in a microwave oven. Afterwards it should start to become clear why you do not want to eat microwaved food ever for any reason. Its interesting how people who are supposed to be educated do not have any common sense around volatile solvents and the potential for flammability. Its like among other things, their olfactory sense is not connected to anything that would stop the madness.