Burn Injury Lawyer in Austin TX
Each year, 1.1 million people in the United States suffer burn injuries that require medical attention. About 45,000 of these injuries are so severe that they require hospitalization. Burn injuries directly cause approximately 4,500 deaths per year, while infections caused by burn injuries kill as many as 10,000 people per year.
Burn injuries damage the skin, which is the largest organ in the human body. The skin serves as a protective barrier against pathogens and helps protect internal organs and tissues from water loss due to evaporation. Skin damaged by a burn injury leaves the body open to short-term complications such as dehydration, infection, hypothermia, and damage to internal organs. Burns can also cause long-term complications including severe physical and emotional scarring.
Burn injury cases can take many forms, product liability, premises liability and of course negligence. The burn injury victim usually has significant physical pain and suffering and the medical expenses accompanying a very serious burn injury can easily reach six or seven figures. Burn injuries are a leading cause of death in the United States. Treatment for burn injuries depends upon the severity of the burns and can last many months if not years.
Treatment can include skin grafts, extensive physical therapy, mental counseling and rehabilitation. If you suffered a burn injury because of a product or the negligent conduct of another, contact the Austin injury lawyers at the Baumgartner Law Firm for a free no obligation consultation.
Burn Injuries Defined
A burn is damage to the skin or other body parts caused by extreme heat, flame, contact with heated objects, chemicals, electricity, sunlight, or radiation. Common causes of burns include hot or boiling water (scalds) and flammable liquids and gases that ignite or explode.
Burn injuries are categorized by “degree” or severity:
- First-degree: damage to only the outer layer (the epidermis) of the skin. An example would be a minor sunburn.
- Second-degree: damage to the epidermis and the layer of skin beneath it (the dermis). Scalding commonly results in second-degree burns.
- Third-degree: damage or complete destruction of the skin to its full depth and damage to underlying tissues. People who experience such burns often require skin grafting. This type of burn frequently results from flame or contact injuries.
- Fourth-degree: destruction of both the epidermis and dermis and damage to the underlying tendons, bone, fat tissue and muscle. High-voltage electrical injuries may result in a fourth-degree burn.
Causes of Burn Injury
Burns can happen in construction accidents, car fires, industrial or on-the-job accidents, apartment or home fires, scalding injuries from hot water heaters and exposure to dangerous chemicals. Each of the methods can lead to a very serious and even fatal result. Over 4000 people die in the United States each year because of fire, although most fatal fire accidents involve smoke in relation. Each year in Texas hundreds of people die from thermal burns or smoke in relation from a fire.
Life Care Planners
Typically, for very serious burn injury a life care planner is used by the injury attorney to develop a plan for future medical care for the burn injury victim. Working in conjunction with treating physicians, a life-care planner estimates the needs and cost of future medical expenses of the victim. Burn injury victims typically have substantial medical treatment requirements when the burns are third degree burns. Reconstructive surgery and skin grafts are some of the most traumatic and painful medical treatment of any personal injury victim.
Burn Injury Lawsuits
Studies have shown that serious burn injury lawsuits have historically provided significant jury verdicts when the jury has found liability on the defendant.
Since the days of the Ford Pinto car fire cases and the General Motors pickup trucks with in-cab gas tanks and sidesaddle gas tanks, many burn injury jury verdicts have made national headlines. Almost everyone has suffered some type of burn and knows the painfulness of even a minor burn. With the permanent damages and future medical care, burn injury victims have a long hard road of recovery in many instances. Texas juries seem to understand what a burn injury victim must go through on an every day basis.
Some of the more common burns are:
- Electrical burns – contact with electrical wires, damaged electrical cords or even defective outlets can cause electrical burns and/or electrocutions.
- Scalding Burns– many children are burned each year in scalding accidents in hot bathtubs or showers. Often, a code violation may provide a breach of a duty by a landlord or another entity when there is a scalding burn to an infant.
- Chemical burns – on-the-job injuries or explosions can cause chemical burns when someone is exposed to toxic chemicals.
- Thermal burns – are common from exposure to flames and can occur in house fires, apartment fires, gasoline fires, explosions caused by propane or other flammable liquids such as gasoline which can be found in many car fires or truck fires.
When a burn injury results in a fatality, the question of whether or not the victim survived the initial event can be a big issue in a burn injury wrongful death lawsuit. Typically, such factors as smoke inhalation which are shown in an autopsy are utilized to provide some evidence that the burn victim was still breathing after the accident. Eyewitness testimony can be very important in showing that a burn injury victim survived the initial fire or explosion. Defendants work very hard to try to prove the decedent died instantly to attempt to avoid survival damages.
Fire and Inhalation Injuries
Burn victims who also suffer from smoke inhalation have a higher rate of death than those who were merely burned. According to the United States Fire Association, seventy-five percent of all fire-related deaths are attributable to inhalation of smoke and toxic gases produced by a fire. Burns caused by the flames accounted for only one-fourth of all such deaths.
Smoke inhalation injures a person in the following three ways:
- Pulmonary Irritation: Over one hundred known toxic substances are present in burn smoke. These toxins can cause direct tissue injury, inflammation, and abnormal contraction of the smooth muscle of the bronchi which constricts and obstructs the respiratory airway (bronchospasm).
- Asphyxiation: Fire in a closed space may significantly decrease the concentration of oxygen that is breathed in, which can lead to a shortage of oxygen in the body (hypoxia).
- Thermal Damage: Heat inhalation occurs when one directly breathes in a heat or flame source.
Burn injuries are often caused by negligence or a defective product.
Negligence:
Negligence is a legal doctrine used to compensate a person for injuries caused by another person’s failure to act with reasonable care. To be found negligent, a plaintiff must prove that the defendant breached a duty owed to the plaintiff, and that breach caused the plaintiff’s injuries. In most cases, a person must exercise the same level of care as a reasonable person would exercise under similar circumstances (the reasonable person standard).
Defective Products:
Burns can also be caused by defective products. A product may be defectively designed or manufactured in such a way that it is unreasonably dangerous. A manufacturer or vendor may be held liable for damages caused by the defect. A product liability claim may be brought against any member of the distribution chain of a dangerous or defective product, including the designer, manufacturer, supplier of component parts, the wholesaler, and the retail store that sold the product.
Austin Burn Injury Lawsuits
Burn injury lawsuits tend to be very serious lawsuits. Consultation with the best Austin injury attorney you can find is a good first step and the sooner you contact a burn injury attorney the better. Steps need to be taken immediately to preserve important evidence in many burn injury cases.