11:09 AM CDT on Wednesday, May 3, 2006

KVUE News

The patient Austin firefighters say sparked a Tuesday morning fire at South Austin Hospital has died.

Investigators say he admitted starting the fire with a cigarette lighter.

It was quickly extinguished by a sprinkler in the room, but not before it burned the man over more than 30 percent of his body.

"It was a scary situation. The beauty of it was the staff reacted so fast I don't think even thought about being scared. I just think they thought about taking care of their patients and getting out of that situation what's really good to add is that we have very specific protocols when responding to disasters and despite the fact this was completely unplanned and surprised by the staff, they followed those procedures," Dr. Steve Berkowitz, South Austin Hospital.

The fire caused about $250,000 in damage and forced the hospital to stop accepting emergency ambulances on Tuesday.

No one else was injured.