Two burns victims taken by helicopter to hospital

Two men were taken by a Coast Guard helicopter to Neskaupstadur hospital in the Eastfjords last week. Although both men were in their early twenties and suffered from burns, their injuries came from entirely different sources. One man’s car caught fire and the other man was injured by the heat of a hot spring.

The Coast Guard helicopter was initially dispatched to east Iceland by Neskaupstadur hospital in order to treat a burns victim from a car fire. The hospital was then contacted about a tourist who had received burns after stepping into a hot spring near Lake Mývatn and decided then to send the helicopter after both men.

The tourist was cared for in the emergency room at the hospital and released shortly afterwards. An assistant physician at the hospital in Neskaupstadur, Ágústa Waage, said, “It was very lucky that we could take him with us.”

The other man suffered more serious burns and is being kept in the hospital’s intensive care unit in order to treat injuries to his face and hands. Doctors at the hospital report that he is in stable condition. It is suspected that the man? smelled gas and then lit a cigarette.