A 50-year-old Rancho Santa Margarita man attempted suicide by setting himself on fire.
The Orange County Sheriff's Department and Orange County Fire Authority responded to a call that came in around 11:15 p.m. Friday from a neighbor who heard the man screaming on the deck of his condominium on Blue Oak.
The victim, who had doused himself with gasoline, was rushed to Western Medical Center's burn unit, where he was treated for second- and third-degree burns all over his body.
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According to the sheriff's department, the man was listed in critical condition with injuries that could cost him his life.
He earlier argued with his estranged wife at her residence before returning to his condo and setting himself ablaze in the bedroom.
No one else was injured. The man's condo is in the middle of a three-unit building, but the condos on either side of his were not damaged.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.