One weekday last month in Portland, Oregon, a boarded-up, vacant home burned down in the southeast section of town. Firefighters responded to the home just before 4 p.m. on a Monday to find the house, located at the end of a road, in flames. To minimize the risk of injury,…
On September 13, 2011, a 46-year-old man working at an alloy plant in Ottawa, Canada, was rushed to a hospital with second degree burns and third degree burns over 30 percent of his body, after being caught in a dust explosion and fire. Local firefighters evacuated a warehouse at Masterloy…
In Mountain View, CA, a year of fund-raising led recently to the moment where a check was presented to the Alisa Ann Ruch Burn Foundation (AARBF), during the annual Peninsula Firefighters Burn Relay. “This is a major support for us, besides the work of the volunteers and their coming to…
Over the past month, there have been so many stories about people who died in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. But here is a story that appeared in the New York Daily News recently that is an excellent example of a survivor who is…
A lawsuit has been filed by the parents of a Texas teenager who suffered severe burns that were allegedly caused by a defective gas container. The lawsuit was filed by Kenneth and Pam Crouch on behalf of their daughter, Brooke Crouch, on July 29 in the Eastern District of Texas,…
A case is making its way through the Iowa civil courts this month that involves the potential legal liability of a day-care center where a toddler suffered severe burns. The parents and grandmother of the severely burned toddler have sued the owners of an Ankeny, IA child-care center, accusing the…
In St. Paul, MN last month, a 19-year-old man named Antoine Willis was physically and psychologically injured when his mother’s boyfriend deliberately set him on fire after an argument. Much of his body still hurts from the severe burns he suffered, and Antoine still has nightmares about the attack. “Sometimes…
Here are just two more examples of families suffering the mental anguish of an injured child because of a single moment of carelessness: First, a toddler in a home outside Atlanta had to be flown to a burn unit at a hospital in the city after being scalded by a…
In late May in Gallatin, TN, three workers were critically burned in a fire at a chemical plant where a flash fire in January had already killed two workers–one of whom succumbed to his third-degree burns just one week before this latest fire. This most recent accident injured five workers,…
In addition to the tragic shopping-mall and nightclub fires I detailed in my last blog entry on April 11, this next story should be a lesson to anyone about thinking of fire safety wherever you are. When at home, you simply must check all possible means of escape on a…