Homeless man died of multi-organ failure after cooking fire accident

A coroner has found there was a delay in the transfer of a homeless man who accidentally set himself on fire to a specialist service because of pandemic restrictions.

PANDEMIC restrictions caused a delay in transferring a homeless man who accidentally set himself on fire as he cooked up dinner to a specialist burns facility, a coroner has found.

Coroner Simon Cooper said there was a protocol that patients suffering greater than 50 per cent burns be transferred to a specialist service in Hobart or Melbourne immediately.

Daniel Tommerup, who was living rough in Launceston, was not transferred straight away, Mr Cooper found, but he found a more timely transfer would not have saved the 51-year-old’s life.

Mr Tommerup, who had been living near the City Baptist Church in Frederick St, died in the Royal Hobart Hospital in October last year.

He was cooking a steak outside Milton Hall when his clothes caught alight and he suffered burns to his lower body.

Passers-by had poured water onto him and extinguished the fire with blankets before emergency services arrived.

Mr Cooper said Mr Tommerup was conscious and lucid and explained to police that he had accidentally set fire to himself.

He was initially taken to the Launceston General Hospital before being taken to Hobart.

His condition then deteriorated markedly and he died two days later in hospital.

A forensic pathologist expressed the opinion that the cause of Mr Tommerup’s death was multi-organ failure due to acute kidney injury and haemodynamic shock as a result of those thermal burns.

Blood taken when he was admitted to hospital showed he had a significantly elevated blood alcohol concentration

“There is no evidence to suggest that Mr Tommerup’s burns were due to anything other than an accident – as he told the police at the time.

“There is no evidence that his death was suspicious or that any other person was involved in it,” Mr Cooper ruled.