Elderly man critical after fire accident at hospital

A ELDERLY man suffered life-threatening burn injuries after accidently setting himself on fire at a Dublin hospital.

The man, believed to be in his 80s, was smoking at St Mary’s Hospital in the Phoenix Park on Thursday morning when the cigarette set his clothing alight.

The clothes on the upper half of his body were ablaze before people in the vicinity realised what had happened.The fire was put out immediately and the man was taken to the special burns unit at St James’s Hospital. He is understood to be in a critical condition.