A 60-year-old cardiac patient, kept under oxygen support, died yesterday as he was evacuating the Dhaka Medical College Hospital in a panic after a fire broke out there.

Around 2:45pm, the fire originated from the air-conditioning unit outside the kidney department on the third floor of the DMCH's new building.

Two firefighting units reached the spot at 3:04pm and the fire was doused at 3:12pm, Khaleda Yasmin, a duty officer at Bangladesh Fire Service and Civil Defence, told The Daily Star.

Akbar Hossain, ward boy of the kidney department, said there were 30 patients in the department and they were all unharmed.

The deceased, Jasim Uddin, from Cumilla's Titas upazila, was admitted to a bed on the fifth floor on Saturday night.

He was suffering from multiple illnesses, including pneumonia, cardiac problems, and breathing difficulties, DMCH Director Brig Gen Nazmul Haque told The Daily Star.

"Jasim was in a critical condition and put under oxygen support. As he started getting down the stairs without his oxygen support, his condition worsened," said the official.

After noticing the smoke, everybody began taking the stairs in a panic to evacuate the building.

At one point, Jasim's relatives also started helping him get down, but he fell on the stairs and became unconscious.

His son, Mofiz Sarkar, said, "When we left my father's oxygen supply behind, he started having breathing difficulties. Soon after, he collapsed getting down the stairs."

Jasim was taken to the emergency department, but doctors declared him dead on arrival around 3:30pm, confirmed Bachchu Mia, police outpost in-charge (inspector) at DMCH.