Chicago Burn Injury Lawyers

What causes serious burn injuries?

Hundreds of thousands of people suffer burn-related injuries in the U.S. every year. These injuries can be traced back to a wide variety of causes, and they tend to vary significantly in severity. Understanding what caused a burn injury is often the first step in filing a claim, so it’s important to carefully consider all potential contributing factors to a severe burn.

Our catastrophic burn injury lawyers commonly work on cases involving:

• Car accidents that lead to fires or explosions
• Workplace accidents
• Construction accidents
• Electrical accidents
• Defective products
• Chemical exposure incidents
• Apartment and house fires
• Industrial accidents

Just because these causes are common doesn’t mean they’re entirely unavoidable. In fact, many severe burn injuries are preventable when people exercise reasonable care. When avoidable safety issues lead to burn injuries, survivors of those injuries may be within their rights to take action against any party whose lack of care caused or contributed to their accident.

How burn injuries are categorized

Medical providers typically classify burns according to their depth and severity so they can develop care plans that accurately reflect the nature of a patient’s injuries. Here’s a quick breakdown of the different classifications of burns:

First-degree burns

First-degree burns affect the outer layer of skin and may cause redness, pain, and mild swelling in some cases. If you’ve ever burned yourself while making dinner or straightening your hair, for example, you probably already know how painful and inconvenient these injuries can be. Thankfully, most of these injuries heal without extensive medical treatment. They just need a little bit of time.

Second-degree burns

Second-degree burns extend deeper into the skin, which can lead to blistering, significant pain, and a heightened risk of infection. Some second-degree burns require specialized wound care and pain management efforts. It’s important to keep these burns clean to prevent them from becoming infected and causing additional complications.

Third-degree burns

Third-degree burns are some of the most serious burn injuries because they can destroy multiple layers of skin and underlying tissues. These injuries often require extensive treatment and hospitalization. Regular debridement may be used to prevent these injuries from becoming infected, but this procedure is often incredibly painful in and of itself. Survivors of third-degree burns commonly require reconstructive procedures and skin graft surgeries, but the risk of complications and scarring remains high for these severe wounds.

Fourth-degree burns

Some medical institutions have added fourth-degree burns to the classification system. These burns are so severe that they extend far below the skin layers and into fat, muscle, and bone. Fourth-degree burns require immediate medical intervention. One of the trickiest things about fourth-degree burns is that they can destroy victims’ nerve endings to the point that their bodies feel numb. In very serious cases of fourth-degree burns, victims may undergo amputations in order to save their lives.

Other kinds of burn injuries we see

While many traditional burn injuries are caused by coming into contact with open flames or a hot surface, there are some other common scenarios that can lead to burns. These injuries use the same degree scale outlined above, but they behave a bit differently. Some examples of often- overlooked or poorly understood burn injuries include:

Chemical burns

It’s possible to be burned by a cold or room-temperature substance. Corrosive chemicals like acids can burn through layers of skin and underlying tissues in a way that is similar to heat- related burns. We often see these injuries in industrial settings, as well as in laboratories where employees regularly handle potentially dangerous substances. The severity of a chemical burn usually depends on the strength of the substance and the duration of a person’s exposure to it.

Electrical burns

These injuries can be sneaky because they sometimes occur deep below the skin’s surface. Electrical burns happen when an electrical current touches or passes through a person’s body. As it moves, the current has the potential to damage muscles, nerves, blood vessels and internal organs – many of which are surprisingly good conductors of electricity. Electrical burns can lead to dangerous complications ranging from cardiac incidents to neurological damage, so it’s important to seek medical care as soon as possible if you suspect you may have sustained an electrical burn.

Explosion-related injuries

Explosions frequently result in a combination of some of the injuries outlined above. In addition to blunt-force trauma and smoke inhalation injuries, survivors of explosions may suffer chemical or electrical burns in addition to more traditional thermal burns. Explosion survivors may suffer multiple serious injuries, including skin damage and scarring, respiratory complications, broken bones, traumatic brain injuries (TBIs), and more. When damages are this extensive, it’s important to partner with an experienced burn accident attorney in Chicago who can conduct a thorough investigation into the explosion and all of its contributing factors.

Workplace burn injuries

Many burn injuries take place in work settings. Workers in construction, manufacturing, transportation, food service, and other industries may regularly come into contact with objects and substances that put them at an increased risk of being burned.

If you sustained a burn injury while performing your work duties, you may be able to leverage your workers’ compensation benefits when seeking medical care. It depends on the specific facts of your case, however, so you’ll want to consult with an attorney who is familiar with workers’ compensation claims. A skilled lawyer can also help you identify all sources of liability in your case so you can pursue legal action against any third parties who may share responsibility for the harm you suffered.