T’puram: An attender sustained a head injury after the plastic cover of an oxygen flowmeter attached to a cylinder accidentally detached and hit her at the casualty wing of govt medical college, Thiruvananthapuram on Friday. The injured, identified as Shereefa Beevi, was immediately shifted to the trauma ICU, hospital authorities said.
Medical college superintendent Dr C G Jayachandran said the injury was not serious and that she was under observation. “It was an emergency situation, and the flowmeter had to be regulated at the site. The injury is mild and she is undergoing treatment,” he said. Oxygen flowmeters are used to regulate the flow of medical gases from the dispensing device to the patient. While such systems are usually regulated at centralised storage facilities in reticulated systems, in certain cases regulation is done at the site. This was the latest in a series of similar incidents reported at govt hospitals in the capital. In May 2025, a trainee anaesthesia technician suffered a head injury in a flowmeter-related accident at the medical college, with scans revealing a minor skull fracture. Earlier, in March, a nursing assistant at SAT Hospital sustained a serious eye injury after a flowmeter burst while she was checking oxygen levels.
