Few injuries involve as much pain and suffering as burn injuries. Victims who have suffered burn injuries not only face an often agonizing road to recovery, but some people must deal with scarring, impaired movement, and disfigurement if they’ve been severely burned.
While we commonly associate burn injuries with fires, the injuries can also stem from other incidents involving hot water, steam, or chemicals. If the injuries were the result of another party’s negligence, then the victim can be entitled to various damages.
If you suffered catastrophic burn injuries in an accident caused by another party’s negligence in Maryland, it is essential for you to retain legal counsel. Insurance companies will often try to delay, diminish, or deny your burn injury claim, but a personal injury attorney can fight to make sure you get everything that you are entitled to.
CHASENBOSCOLO has recovered more than $750 million for our clients since 1986. Call (301) 220-0050 or contact us online to take advantage of a free consultation.
Do I Need A Burn Injury Lawyer?
The primary reason you will want to have an attorney is so you can be sure that you are able to recover as much compensation as possible. After an accident causing burn injuries, you will likely be contacted by the insurance company for the negligent party, and you do not want to jeopardize your burn injury claim by handling the conversations and negotiations with the company on your own.
In some cases, the insurance representatives will act very concerned and pretend to be helpful all the while looking for reasons to blame you, the victim, for the burn injuries you suffered. In other cases, the insurance company will take advantage of your need for money to pay your medical bills and might offer a low-ball settlement to get you to accept money and make your claim go away. Some people are quick to accept these offers out of fear that is will be the only offer they receive. The unfortunate truth about most initial settlement offers from insurers is that they are never enough to pay for the full lifetime of care required for burn injuries, so victims who agree to such settlements then must pay all costs out of their own pockets.
CHASENBOSCOLO will immediately commence an independent investigation of your accident to determine the cause of your injuries and preserve the evidence needed to prove that cause as well as identify all liable parties. Our firm will then work tirelessly to make sure that you receive all of the compensation you need and deserve.
Why Choose CHASENBOSCOLO To Handle My Case?
CHASENBOSCOLO has three Maryland offices in Greenbelt, Waldorf, and Hyattsville. Our firm has been helping all kinds of injury victims since 1986.
Barry M. Chasen and Benjamin T. Boscolo have both received an AV Preeminent rating from Martindale-Hubbell, a peer rating denoting the highest level of professional excellence. They are both members of the American Association for Justice, Maryland Association for Justice, and Maryland State Bar Section Council on Negligence, Insurance, and Workers’ Compensation.
CHASENBOSCOLO also provides the No Fee Guarantee®. This means that you will not pay anything until you obtain a financial award.
Types of Burn Injury Cases We Handle
Most burn injuries are thermal burns, which involve contact with fire, hot liquid, hot objects, or steam. Thermal burns are far from being the only kinds of serious burn injuries people can suffer. Contact with an electrical current can result in burn injuries, and chemical burns or as alkali burns stem from contact with acidic substances. Other less severe types of burns include friction burns caused by skin rubbing against a coarse surface and radiation burns caused by exposure to ionizing radiation, thermal radiation, or ultraviolet light (UV rays).
Burn injuries are typically classified by degrees. The three most common degrees are:
- First-Degree Burns — Sunburn is the most common example of a first-degree burn, which is a slight burn of just the epidermis, the outer layer of the skin. First-degree burns usually heal in a matter of days.
- Second-Degree Burns — A second-degree burn involves damage to both the epidermis and the dermis, the layer of skin below the epidermis. These burns may cause blistering, and some can result in skin grafts or scarring. It usually takes several weeks for second-degree burn injuries to heal.
- Third-Degree Burns — When burn damage extends all the way into sweat glands and underlying tissues, it is considered a third-degree burn. Third-degree burns always require skin grafting, but surgery can also be required in some cases.
Burn injuries do have three other degrees, although they are not as common and people rarely survive the higher-graded burn injuries. A fourth-degree burn extends into the fat, a fifth-degree burn extends into the muscle, and a sixth-degree burn extends into the bone.
You do not want to delay in contacting an attorney if you’ve been badly burned in an accident caused by negligence. Important evidence will need to be preserved to prove that another party was responsible for the harm you suffered. Delaying too long could result in the loss of key evidence that makes it more difficult to prove another party’s negligence.
How is burn size calculated?
Total body surface area (BSA) affected by a burn is usually calculated with the Wallace rule of nines (more commonly known simply as the Rule of Nines), a chart of the human body that has percentage values assigned to areas of the body for adults and children. A doctor wanting to estimate the BSA affected simply adds up the corresponding values, and the name Rule of Nines comes from most body parts having 9 percent BSA damage. The only exceptions to the 9 percent designation are the leg and the entire back (18 percent each) as well the groin (1 percent).
What is a skin graft?
A skin graft is quite simply a skin transplant. The name of the type of skin graft being performed is derived from the source of donor skin. An autologous or autograph is donor skin taken from a different site on the same victim’s body while a syngraft, isogeneic, or isograft is donor and victim who are genetically identical. Allogeneic or allografts involve donors and victims of the same species, heterografts, xenogeneic, or xenografts, are donors and victims of different species, and a prosthetic graft involves lost tissue replaced with synthetic materials.
What are the rehabilitation options for burn injury victims?
The most common specialty center for burn injury treatment is usually a burn center. Burn centers in Maryland include the Johns Hopkins Burn Center at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center and the National Burn Reconstruction Center at Good Samaritan Hospital. Other inpatient or outpatient rehabilitation facilities and skilled nursing facilities may also treat burn injury victims, and rehabilitation could include physical therapy focusing on physical impairments, occupational therapy focusing on daily living activities, or speech-language pathology.
Burn Injury Statistics
The Office of the Maryland State Fire Marshal reported that 28 victims of fatal fires died as the result of smoke inhalation and thermal burns while three people died as the result of burn injuries in 2017. These totals were less than the 31 people killed by smoke inhalation and thermal burns and 11 people killed by burns in 2016.
The Maryland Institute for Emergency Medical Services 2016-2017 Annual Report found that Johns Hopkins Burn Center had 826 adult burn cases from June 2014 to May 2015, 735 cases from June 2015 to May 2016, and 740 cases from June 2015 to May 2016. The place of injury for patients 15 years of age or older treated at Johns Hopkins Burn Center included 452 non-institutional private residences, 12 institutional private residences, seven schools, five sport and athletic areas, 41 streets or highways, 46 trade and service areas, 36 industrial and construction areas, three farms, 29 other places, and 109 unspecified places.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a person died in a fire every two hours and somebody was injured by fire every 23 minutes in the United States in 2000. As many as 10,000 people are killed annually by burn-related infections.
There were 486,00 burn injuries in the United States requiring medical treatment in 2016, according to the American Burn Association (ABA). Of the 40,000 hospitalizations related to burn injuries, 30,000 involved hospital burn centers.
The ABA reported that 128 burn centers admitted more than 60 percent of acute hospitalizations in the United States related to burn injury. These burn centers averaged over 200 annual admissions compared to the fewer than three burn admissions per year averaged by the 4,500 other acute care hospitals.
The National Fire Protection Association stated in a 2010 report that children under five years of age are one and a half times at higher risk to die in a home fire compared to the general public. Children under five years of age were also eight times as likely as any other age group to die in a fire caused by playing with a heat source.
Contact a Burn Injury Attorney in Maryland
Did you sustain serious burn injuries as the result of another party’s negligence in Maryland? CHASENBOSCOLO has the experienced team, extensive resources, and network of medical and financial experts you’ll need to recover the full and fair compensation the responsible party owes you. While some firms merely look to settle every case they take, our firm prepares every single case for trial even when a settlement appears to be likely. Our Maryland injury lawyers can examine your case and provide you thorough, honest feedback when you call (301) 220-0050 or contact us online to set up a free consultation.
