Medical

Published on: February 22, 2012

Smoke Inhalation Injury From Burning Garbage Pits: Does U.S. Government Have Legal Liability?

Rather than creating traditional landfills, U.S. military personnel have burned tons of trash and human waste while stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan. But some veterans now believe that their present health problems are the result of breathing in the polluted fumes and smoke that came from those burn pits.

Legislation filed in November in the U.S. Congress would direct the Department of Veterans Affairs to create a registry for veterans who might have been exposed to these burn pits during the wars involving the U.S. between 2001 and 2011. The database would allow the government to collect information on the number of veterans exposed to the burn pits and the types of health problems they are suffering. However, it doesn’t direct the government to provide any particular type of benefits to those veterans.

“Is there a really consistent pattern of a problem, of is it more a coincidence?” said one member of Congress. “We’ve seen anecdotally what appears to be some pretty weird symptoms that just turned up from nowhere” among soldiers stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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Published on: February 21, 2012

Discharge Home After a Burn Injury

By Larry Kramer

After staying in the hospital for a period of time, there will come a time when the patient has to be discharged home. When the burn team decides that the patient is ready to be discharged, a plan will be set for the discharge. The case manager will work with the patient and his/her family to coordinate for the discharge. Some patients will be discharged to a rehabilitation center to continue their treatment. Don’t hesitate to ask any question you have regarding your discharge plan. The discharge plan will include:

The medications that the patient will use after discharge: before discharge you have to know the medications that you have to continue using, how to take them, the dose, how many times a day, what the medicine is used for and what are the possible side effects of the drugs. You have to finish any prescription you are given even if you are feeling good.
The diet that you should consume: a well balanced, healthy diet should be consumed by the patient with plenty of fluids. If there are diet restrictions it will be discussed with the patient before discharge which will differ from one patient to another depending on the situation of the patient (see Nutrition and Burns).

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Published on: February 16, 2012

Quick Thinking Minimizes Burn Injury After Scald Accident

By Larry Kramer

In late January in a small town in Illinois, a mother and father helped to minimize the injury to their nine-year-old daughter from a burn accident, by knowing what to do and acting quickly.

What would you do if your child got scalded by boiling hot water, or if you saw a restaurant worker scalded by hot liquid or food? Doctors say this is something that parents and restaurants employees alike should know, because these scalding accidents happens a lot.

The young girl in this case did sustain second degree burns and third degree burns, and was still in considerable plain a few weeks after the burn accident. But without her parents’ fast actions, the girl probably would have had much worse injuries–which could have required skin graft surgery to repair damaged skin.

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Published on: February 14, 2012

Door Fires and Burn Accidents in Toyota Models Under Investigation

By Larry Kramer

Some Toyota Camry and RAV4 owners have reported their car doors catching on fire, apparently from a power window switch. Federal safety regulators are investigating reports of fires in the driver’s side doors of 2007 Toyota Camry sedans and RAV4 crossover SUVs.

The probe could affect as many as 830,000 vehicles, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said last week in documents posted on its website. The vehicles have not been recalled.

The fires appear to start in the power window switch in the door. Six fires have been reported to the agency, but NHTSA has no reports of anyone being hurt. The agency said it started the investigation this week.

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Published on: February 10, 2012

Hazards Including Second Degree Burns Lead to Recall Tassimo Coffee Makers

By Larry Kramer

A 10 year old girl sufferred a second degree burn to her face and neck and needed to be hospitalized as a result of a defective coffee maker. The consumer Product Safety Comission (CPSC) reported that there have been 140 reports of problems with the Tassimo single-cup brewers dousing people, including 37 cases involving second degree burns. CPSC reported that the plastic disc that holds the coffee or tea in the coffee maker’s (T-disc) can burst while brewing and spray hot liquid and coffee grounds or tea leaves onto consumers .

About 835,000 coffee makers are on recall in the United States and another 900,000 in Canada. The agency also announced the recall of 4 million packages of Tassimo espresso T-discs after 21 reports of problems.

Contact with hot liquids is one of the causes of a second degree burn. Clinical features of a second degree burn may include the following;

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Published on: February 9, 2012

A Wrong Decision to Extinguish a Fire Results in a Severe Burn Accident

By Larry Kramer

In Knoxville, Tennessee last week, a fire in the middle of the night from a fireplace that was not properly monitored cause severe burns to a 23-year-old man. Apparently, the man tried to put out the spreading flames by stomping on the burning materials and by placing towels over the flames to smother them. As a result, the victim suffered second degree burns and third degree burns to his hands and feet. He was flown to the Vanderbilt Burn Center in Nashville for more advanced treatment. The victim might need a skin graft to fully heal his burn wounds.

A neighbor said that the man, who was alone in the house at the time of the fire, was using the fireplace to stay warm. “When fire crews got to the house, the victim was outside already,” said the local fire chief. “He had apparently made an attempt to put the flames out before they got out of control. That’s usually when you suffer burns to your hands and feet.”

Firefighters attended to the victim, and started a defensive attack to keep the fire from spreading to houses next door. But the fire became so intense that a neighbor’s home, including the roof and siding, was damaged by the heat. In addition to the victim’s house being destroyed, there is now the possibility that the burn victim has legal liability for damages inflicted upon the adjacent house.

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Published on: February 7, 2012

NASCAR Shop Accident Shows That Workplace Fires Can Happen Anywhere

By Larry Kramer

In late January, ten people were treated and released from the hospital after suffering smoke inhalation from a fire that broke out inside the Joe Gibbs Racing complex in Huntersville, N.C.

Huntersville police said that a machine, thought to be a laser cutter, caught fire inside the building. The fire was contained to the machine shop inside the building, and the 10 people were treated by paramedics in the adjacent parking lot. These ten people were then cleared to go back inside the complex.

“A piece of equipment in the machine shop caught fire at our Joe Gibbs Racing headquarters in Huntersville, N.C. The fire department was called and the fire was quickly contained and extinguished,” read a statement from Joe Gibbs Racing. “A few of our employees received treatment on site for issues related to smoke inhalation. All employees were able to return to work within the hour to continue preparations for the 2012 NASCAR season.”

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Published on: February 2, 2012

Wrongful Death Lawsuit Filed for Industrial Employee who Suffered Third Degree Burns at Work

By Larry Kramer

In late December, the wife of an industrial worker who suffered fatal third degree burns when a steel ladle erupted and spewed molten steel on him, has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against her husband’s employer and the manufacturers of the ladle.

Roxanne Moyer, individually and on behalf of her deceased husband, Samuel N. Moyer, filed suit against Siemens Vai Services et als, Signal Metal Industries Inc., Danieli Corp., North American Refractories Co. and Black Diamond Capital Management on December 30, 2011 in federal court in New Orleans, LA.

The incident occurred on February 1, 2011 while Samuel Moyer was working as a furnace second helper in the ArcelorMittal Laplace steel manufacturing mill. During the course of his regular job duties, a steel ladle erupted and spewed molten steel, which came into contact with Moyer. Two days later, he died from third degree burns he suffered during the incident.

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Published on: January 31, 2012

Three People Suffer Smoke Inhalation but Are Saved from Fire; Stored Gasoline to Blame

By Larry Kramer

Near Chicago last month, three people–one of them a baby–were rescued from a basement fire. It is almost a miracle they survived after suffering smoke inhalation and falling unconscious before they could escape on their own.

The suburban Des Plaines Fire Department responded to a call about people trapped in a burning residence about 6:45 p.m. Firefighters were dispatched and arrived at the scene in about four minutes. They saw that most the flames and smoke were coming from the basement, so they moved into that area first and found three victims.

Two victims, a woman and a male baby, were unconscious. Firefighters removed them from the building and were able to resuscitate them before transferring them to an ambulance. The third victim, a woman, suffered minor burns and smoke inhalation.

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Published on: January 26, 2012

Ice Packs Can Cause Serious Burns

By Larry Kramer

Ice packs are used sometimes to treat muscle strains or sprains in different parts of the body. These packs if incorrectly used, can cause skin burns which may vary from mild such as first degree burns or more severe such as second and third degree burns. Cold burns are caused by the prolonged contact with icy objects or snow, as well as the exposure to windy conditions. The burn is cause by a drop in the temperature of the skin in contact with the ice pack, this drop in temperature causes the water contained in the cells to freeze forming sharp ice crystals and damaging the surrounding cell structure. In addition the blood vessels located close to the skin start to constrict and when the skin and the underlying tissues are exposed to prolonged cold or extreme cold, the flow of blood to the affected areas will be greatly reduced leading to damage to these areas. (See also Frostbite)

One of the most common ways this can occur is through the application of the ice pack directly on the skin of the injured area. There are certain factors that may increase the incidence of cold induced burn injuries, these may include:

People who use medications that decrease the blood flow to the skin such as beta-blockers.

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