One of the most important steps you can take after suffering a burn injury in an accident is to talk to a Tampa, Florida burn injury lawyer. Burn injuries can require extensive medical treatment and therapy. Without compensation, you might not receive the medical care you need for your injuries.
Burns can also substantially disrupt your life. The pain, mental anguish, and scarring produced by burn injuries can reduce your quality of life.
Here is some information about burns and what a Tampa catastrophic injury lawyer at Roman Austin Personal Injury Lawyers can do to help. Contact our Tampa law office or call us at (813) 686-7588 today.
What Are the Different Types of Burn Injuries?
In its broadest definition, burns happen when the skin gets damaged through a chemical reaction.
Some common types of burns include:
Thermal Burn Injury
Thermal burns happen when your skin touches a hot solid, liquid, or gas. A hot pipe, frying oil, or steam can burn your skin by damaging the skin cells.
When they reach a certain temperature, the skin cells burst. Worse yet, the flesh can undergo chemical changes analogous to cooking.
Doctors typically classify burns into three degrees:
First-Degree Burns
These burns only damage the upper layer of skin called the epidermis. They usually produce pain and redness. First-degree thermal burns happen at about 120 degrees Fahrenheit.
Second-Degree Burns
These burns damage the epidermis and the underlying layer called the dermis. They produce pain, redness, inflammation, and blisters. Second-degree thermal burns occur at about 130 degrees Fahrenheit.
Third-Degree Burns
These burns destroy the epidermis and dermis. These burns will destroy your flesh. You will not experience any pain because the burn will destroy nerve endings. Third-degree thermal burns happen at about 160 degrees Fahrenheit.
A fourth classification is sometimes used to describe third-degree burns that reach below the dermis into the soft tissue and bones.
Combustion Burn Injury
Combustion burns happen your body catches fire. Combustion burns can singe hair and char skin and flesh.
Combustion burns are particularly painful because doctors will need to debride the charred tissue from the burn. To do this, doctors will pick at and scrub the burned area to clear away all of the dead skin and flesh.
Chemical Burn Injury
Chemical burns occur when a caustic chemical reacts with your skin cells. Chemicals that can burn skin include acids, lye, cleaning chemicals, and petroleum products.
Electrical Burn Injury
When you touch an electrified object, the electric current reacts with the cells of your skin. Electricity damages the skin in two ways.
First, the object gets hot due to the resistance of your skin. This produces a thermal burn on your skin.
Secondly, the electric current destroys skin cells by transferring electrons to them. Electric current can also destroy other cells, particularly those in the organs due to their water content. This means you could have severe internal burns, even if your external burns seem superficial.
Radiation Burn Injury
Radiation burns result from an interaction between your skin and power electromagnetic waves. The most common radiation burn comes from the sun. Ultraviolet radiation from the sun can produce first- and second-degree sunburns.
Radiation burns can also happen in accidents with radiation sources. Healthcare, food processing, mining, and manufacturing industries store radioactive materials for medical treatment, imaging, sterilization, and measuring.
What is the Treatment for a Burn Injury?
The treatment you receive for a burn injury will depend on the type of burn you receive. Typically, a doctor will clean your wound to try to minimize the risk of infection. The doctor will dress the wound to reduce the fluid loss through the wound.
For severe burns, a doctor might use skin grafts to protect the wound and encourage healing.
What Complications Can Arise from a Burn Injury?
Burn injuries can result in many complications, including:
Infection
The skin protects the body from bacteria and other microbes. When the skin gets burned, the body becomes susceptible to infection.
Dehydration
The skin keeps moisture in the body. After a burn, your body can lose moisture. This can lead to dehydration.
Heat Loss
The skin helps your body maintain its temperature. When the skin burns, you might lose the ability to regulate your body temperature.
Vision Problems
Chemical burns are sometimes accompanied by blindness or vision problems if the chemicals also burned the eyes.
Arrhythmia
Heart arrhythmia can arise from electric burns. The electric current can short-circuit the heart, leading to heart problems.
Smoke Inhalation
Smoke can damage the lungs and will often complicate your recovery from burns.
Scars
Severe burns can produce disfiguring scars, particularly doctors treat your burn with a skin graft.
Contractures
Scarring after a burn can cause the skin, muscles, and tendons to tighten. This can lead to mobility problems long after the burn has healed.
How Do I Prove Liability for Burn Injuries in Tampa?
Not all burn injuries provide a basis for liability. Some burns result from a genuine accident rather than actionable conduct.
A few circumstances in which a Tampa burn injury lawyer can recover compensation include:
Workplace Accidents
Florida requires almost all employers to buy workers’ compensation insurance. If you are burned in a workplace accident, you are likely entitled to workers’ compensation benefits.
A workplace accident can also open the door to a third-party lawsuit against someone besides your employer. Faulty equipment, dangerous chemicals, or inadequate safety instructions can give you a claim against a manufacturer or supplier.
Intentional Conduct
Intentional conduct, such as battery, can expose the person who burned you to both criminal and civil liability. If a Tampa burn injury lawyer can prove the person’s intent to batter you, you may recover damages.
Negligence
Negligence happens when someone fails to exercise reasonable care. For example, a shop that leaves an exposed wire in its public bathroom or a truck driver who fails to stop at a stop sign might be negligent. If you get burned due to someone else’s negligence, you can recover damages.
What Damages Can I Recover for a Burn Injury?
Any time you get injured due to the fault of another party, an experienced burn injury lawyer can fight to recover your economic damages. This includes your past and future medical expenses and lost income.
With a burn injury, your economic expenses might be extensive. Burns often require expensive medical treatment, which might make you miss months of work.
You may also recover your non-economic damages. These damages compensate you for the diminishment in your quality of life.
Physical pain, mental suffering, inconvenience, loss of activities, and loss of sexual relations might form a basis for non-economic damages after a burn injury.
Contact Our Catastrophic Injury Attorneys in Tampa for Help
Contact Roman Austin Personal Injury Lawyers for a free consultation to discuss the damages a team of Tampa personal injury lawyers can recover in your case. You deserve compensation for your damages and losses. You can also contact a car accident lawyer in Tampa.