Doctors performing life-saving emergency surgery on a patient in Australia found themselves doubling as firies when they had to put out a fire in the patient's cracked-open chest cavity.

According to the report presented over the weekend at the Euroanaesthesia Congress, the annual convention of the European Society of Anaesthesiology, the doctors went in the man's chest to repair a small tear in his aorta - the main blood vessel that transports blood between the heart and the rest of the body.

Because of issues with the patient's chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), they increased the amount of oxygen flowing through the patient's gas mask by 100 percent.  But when it combined with the sevoflurane anaesthetic in the patient's lung it created a volatile mixture.

The surgical procedure required the doctors to use an electrocautery device, a surgical tool that uses heat to seal (or cauterise) wounds.  It created a spark that landed on a dry surgical pack, and in the usually oxygen-rich atmosphere, it caused a flash fire to burst out in the man's chest.

Amazingly, the doctors managed to put out the fire and complete the surgery without any harm to the patient.

Even though the incident is incredibly rare, it just goes to show that surgeons need to be prepared for anything:

"This case highlights the continued need for fire training and prevention strategies and quick intervention to prevent injury whenever electrocautery is used in oxygen-enriched environments," said the paper's lead author Dr. Ruth Shaylor from Austin Health in Melbourne.  "In particular, surgeons and anaesthetists need to be aware that fires can occur in the chest cavity if a lung is damaged or there is an air leak for any reason, and that patients with COPD are at increased risk."