UPDATE: Man dies in apartment fire on The Murfreesboro Post

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UPDATE: Man dies in apartment fire

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By: TMP Reports

Posted: Tuesday, January 12, 2010 4:26 pm

One man possibly burned to his death after smoking while using oxygen at his Naylor Avenue apartment, Murfreesboro Police reported.

Friend Allen Gudelis found the body of John Keith Morgan, 55, inside his apartment, Officer Michael D. Yates reported.

“It appeared that Mr. Morgan was smoking while using his oxygen,” Yates reported. “Apparently, the oxygen ignited and burned Mr. Morgan to death.”

The time and day of the fire was unknown, the officer reported. Gudelis has not been in contact with Morgan in a week.

Murfreesboro Assistant Fire Chief Allen Swader said Assistant Fire Marshal Carl Peas is investigating the fire. Investigators hope an autopsy will give the cause of death.

"Preliminary results of the autopsy did not reveal any evidence oftrauma to the body other than from fire," Swader reported Wednesday."There were no signs of forced trauma to the body, such as bullet wounds, knife wounds, etc."

In an unrelated case, Edgar B. Garcia, 23, of Hancock Street was charged with aggravated assault Saturday by Detective Tannas Knox.

Victim Gabriel Rodriguez accused Garcia, his girlfriend’s former boyfriend, of meeting him to talk in his vehicle parked at Kroger on Lascassas Pike. They got into an argument.

The suspect “opened the door and stabbed him with a long knife in the left side of the torso area,” Knox reported. Garcia apparently stabbed the back tire of Rodriguez’s vehicle.

Knox interviewed Garcia who became angry with Rodriguez because he didn’t have contact with his ex-girlfriend’s child. He gave a statement about the stabbing. No weapon was found.

Garcia was charged and booked into Rutherford County Adult Detention Center. A hearing is set Feb. 11 in General Sessions Court.

Tagged under fire fatality, John Keith Morgan

Member Opinions:

By: HuskyLover on 1/12/10
Smoking while using oxygen, you say? Darwin at work...

By: SocEtTuem on 1/13/10
“It appeared that Mr. Morgan was smoking while using his oxygen,” Yates reported. “Apparently, the oxygen ignited and burned Mr. Morgan to death.”

Sorry Mr. Yates, wrong conclusion. Oxygen does not burn. In the presence of oxygen fuel will burn faster, but the oxygen itself does not. For example, if you place a candle in an oxygen rich environment, the candle will burn much faster and brighter, but the oxygen in the environment will not ignite. Similarly, in the case of the unfortunate victim, by exposing his cigarette to oxygen, it burn far faster, possibly causing him to drop it on another source of combustion such as a blanket or his clothing which also reacted with the oxygen to burn at a rate much faster than normal.

In either event, HuskyLover is correct, the smoker is likely to be nominated for (and win) a Darwin Award.

By: vstallings on 1/14/10
Let's try to remember that Mr. Morgan had family and friends.

By: HuskyLover on 1/14/10
Let's try to remember that this is an online forum open to discussion and regardless of individual judgments of situational appropriateness, comments *are* going to be made. Smoking while using oxygen is a tremendously stupid thing to do.