Douglasville Burn Injury Attorneys

Every year throughout the United States, there are around 29,165 hospital admissions as a result of burn injuries. Burn injuries can be catastrophic, leaving you with scarring, organ damage, and other severe health consequences that could require extensive treatment at Wellness Douglas Medical Center. 

If you’ve suffered a burn because of someone else’s negligent or wrongful conduct in Georgia, you could be entitled to receive compensation. At Kaufman Injury Law, our Douglasville burn injury attorneys can help you fight to recover damages for the losses you’ve sustained. Call us today to discuss your legal options.

Understanding Burn Injuries

There are a few different types of burn injuries and severity ranges to keep in mind. Our Georgia burn injury attorneys represent claims for people who have suffered any kind of burn that required treatment. 

Types of Burns

Thermal burns are those that occur when skin comes into contact with excessive heat. Usually, they involve hot surfaces, steam, scalding liquids, and open flames. About 86% of all burns that require medical intervention are thermal. 

Chemical burns occur as a result of exposure to acids, solvents, detergents, and alkalies. Although chemical burns tend to heal more rapidly than other burns, they are prone to leaving scars. 

You can also experience radiation burns if you have prolonged exposure to X-rays, the sun’s ultraviolet rays, and any other source of radiation. These burns often occur as a result of cancer treatment. 

Electrical burns happen when you come into contact with an electrical current. The higher the voltage involved, the more severe the burn damage will be. 

Burn Injuries Severity Ranges

Burn injuries can range in severity, with first-degree burns being the mildest. These burns affect the top layer of skin, called the epidermis, which typically turns red but doesn’t blister. 

Second-degree burns affect the epidermis and a lower skin level. The injury site will be swollen and painful, and you can expect to experience blistering. 

On the other hand, third-degree burns, also called full-thickness burns, affect all three skin layers: the epidermis, dermis, and fat. These burns can destroy sweat glands and hair follicles while also causing nerve damage. Most people don’t feel pain at the wound site itself but instead experience it in the area around the burn. The skin can turn white, black, or red. 

Burns that cover 15% to 20% of an adult’s body or 10% of a child’s body are medical emergencies that will require extensive medical treatment in a hospital setting. 

Potential Complications of Severe Burns

Severe burns pose the risk of significant complications, including experiencing:

• Infections that could cause sepsis
• Organ damage
• Excess swelling and fluid in tissues
• Low blood pressure that leads to shock
• Dehydration
• Heart rhythm disturbance
• Pneumonia
• Dangerously low body temperature

Along with physical injuries, people who experience burn injuries may also develop depression and anxiety as a result of scarring and other long-term consequences of the injury. Some develop post-traumatic stress disorder severe enough to impact their quality of life. 

Our attorneys can evaluate all the ways your burns have impacted your life and seek the maximum amount of compensation available to address them.

The Most Common Causes of Douglasville Burn Injuries

Burns can happen for a number of reasons in Douglas County. The team of personal injury lawyers at Kaufman Injury Law can help if you experience a burn injury due to any of the following causes:

Traffic Collisions

When people think of car accidents, the injuries they may associate with them are whiplash, broken bones, and even concussions, but not necessarily burns. When a vehicle is in a collision, however, all kinds of things can go wrong. 

Fuel lines can rupture, requiring only a spark to ignite the vehicle. You may also experience electrical burns. Modern vehicles are complex, and a crash can lead to wiring damage. The car’s battery can short circuit, putting you at risk of experiencing a chemical burn from the leaking battery acid. 

For an airbag to deploy, the process relies on chemicals. Those chemicals, together with the friction of the airbag against your skin, can lead to serious thermal burns. You can also come into contact with parts of the vehicle that have overheated as a result of the collision. The car’s metal components are particularly dangerous. 

Worksite Accidents

People who work in construction sites and warehouses can suffer burns at their jobs. Electrical burns on a construction site can occur because of defective tools, like welding equipment, as well as from exposure to chemicals. Live wiring is another concern, causing electrical burns that could be fatal. 

Coming into contact with steam or hot equipment is a problem in warehouses, construction sites, and any other worksite that uses heavy machinery. Fires and explosions can also break out.

Defective Household Items

Appliances that short circuit or are defective and overheat can all cause severe burns. They can start house fires, too. Similarly, boilers sometimes don’t function as they need to, causing water to scald you as you take a shower. 

You also have the potential to experience chemical burns if you use cleaning agents in your home that don’t have clear warnings. These chemicals can burn your skin and eyes. 

Medical Procedures

When you receive a medical procedure that relies on X-ray equipment or anything else that emits radiation, you could face burns if the equipment malfunctions or if the healthcare provider is negligent. Overuse of fluoroscopy-guided interventions can also result in burns. 

How Our Team of Douglasville Burn Injury Lawyers Can Help

If you’ve suffered burn injuries in Douglasville, you could be entitled to receive compensation by filing a personal injury claim. A lawyer’s help is vital in this process because of the complexities involved in proving liability and negotiating with insurance companies.

For most of the accidents that result in burn injuries, you will have to prove that someone acted negligently. This means establishing that they had a duty of care toward you that they breached. 

Suppose that you were burned in a car accident that someone else caused by texting while driving. Any time someone gets behind the wheel of a vehicle, they have a responsibility to drive safely. By texting while driving, the person breached that duty of care. 

You then have to show that the person’s actions led to injuries for which you can be compensated. If you suffered a burn that required medical care as a result of the collision, then you have the right to file a claim for compensation. 

Although it can seem like a straightforward process, gathering all of the necessary evidence is not easy, especially if you’re dealing with injuries. Our skilled team of lawyers can do all of this for you so that you can focus on healing. 

We also take care of the negotiations with insurance companies. They’ll try many tactics to get you to accept a low offer, so having our lawyers handle this step for you can improve your chances of getting a fair deal. If necessary, we can also advocate for you in court. 

Call Our Experienced Douglasville Burn Injury Attorneys Now

If someone else’s negligent or wrongful conduct led you to suffer a burn injury in Douglasville, you need a seasoned and dedicated personal injury lawyer to represent you. At Kaufman Injury Law, our team offers aggressive legal assistance to help you get the compensation you deserve to recover the losses you’ve suffered. Schedule a free consultation with one of our Douglasville burn injury attorneys to get started today.