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March 3, 2008

Update: Fire victim remains critical

PROVIDENCE — A man who was critically burned in a house fire in Smith Hill late yesterday afternoon had been drinking alcohol and was smoking in bed when the fire began, the city fire marshal says.

“Whether he fell asleep smoking, or he just didn’t realize he had dropped” his lit cigarette, an investigation shows that the cigarette caused the mattress of his bed to catch fire, according to Fire Marshal Anthony DiGiulio.

The victim, Rainer Randell, 41, is in critical condition in the intensive care unit at Rhode Island Hospital, according to DiGiulio, suffering from second- and third-degree burns over 50 percent of his body.

Randell is deaf, but there is no evidence that his impairment was a factor in the incident because there were no working smoke or carbon monoxide detectors in the house at 132 Ruggles St., DiGiulio said.

“When the fire trucks arrived, that room was heavily engulfed in flame,” DiGiulio said.

-- Journal staff writer Gregory Smith

Posted by Brandie Jefferson  at 6:35 PM | Permalink

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