Burn injuries are commonly associated with fire or hot objects, but they can also be caused by contact with electricity or harsh chemicals. Many burn injuries can be life-threatening. There were 486,00 burn injuries in the United States requiring medical treatment in 2016 that included 40,000 hospitalizations, according to the American Burn Association (ABA).
Burn injuries can be incredibly painful and are often expensive to treat. Scar tissue from burns can also cause bone or joint problems, and many of these injuries can result in permanent disfigurement. As a result, victims can find themselves dealing with the consequences of a burn accident for months, years, and possibly the rest of their lives.
If you or your loved one suffered severe burn injuries in an accident caused by another party’s negligence in the greater San Diego area, you should not have to pay the price for their actions or inaction. Jurewitz Law Group Injury & Accident Lawyers is here to ensure that you are protected and that no one takes advantage of you during this difficult time. We are not afraid to take on the insurance companies and their aggressive legal teams that will look to minimize or deny your rightful claim. Let us fight for you and help ensure that you get the maximum compensation possible.
The team at Jurewitz Law Group Injury & Accident Lawyers knows that we are paid to get results, and we’ll fight to make sure that the negligent party is held fully accountable if you’ve suffered a burn injury that has impacted your life. Call us at (855) 236-1324 or contact us online to schedule a free consultation with a knowledgeable burn injury lawyer today.
Do I Need A Burn Injury Lawyer?
After you have sustained a burn injury in an accident, an insurance company representative will likely contact you soon after your accident. The agent you speak with will act concerned and may promise that everything you are dealing with will be taken care of, even possibly telling you that you do not need to hire an attorney to represent you.
You should be extremely skeptical about anything the insurance company representatives say because all insurance companies will try to pay as little as possible to resolve a claim. Insurers will be working against you even when they are pretending to be on your side.
One of the easiest ways to limit compensation paid in these cases is finding reasons to deny a claim, which is frequently accomplished by pinning as much blame as possible for an accident on the victim. You must be sure to not provide any recorded statement to an insurance company or its claims adjuster until you have legal counsel.
In other cases, insurance companies will quickly offer people lump sum settlements that they will then pressure them into accepting. People are right to wonder if these are fair offers because most of the time, they are shockingly short of what victims are entitled to, and a lawyer can immediately step in to deal with an insurer and fight for a fair and full settlement for your case.
Why Choose Jurewitz Law Group Injury & Accident Lawyers To Handle My Case?
Jurewitz Law Group Injury & Accident Lawyers has been helping accident victims all over San Diego and surrounding areas since 2000. We only represent injury victims, never insurance companies.
Ross Jurewitz is a member of the San Diego Regional Chamber, Carlsbad Chamber of Commerce, Consumer Attorneys of San Diego, Consumer Attorneys of California, American Bar Association, and State Bar of California. He has been named one of the Top 3 Personal Injury Lawyers in San Diego by Threebestrated.com, a member of the Best of the Bar 2015 by the San Diego Business Journal and a Super Lawyer by the Southern California Super Lawyers in 2016, 2017, and 2018.
Jurewitz Law Group Injury & Accident Lawyers is a proud member of the Million Dollar Advocates Forum, which is one of the most prestigious groups of trial lawyers in the United States. Membership is limited to attorneys who have won million and multi-million dollar verdicts and settlements. Fewer than 1 percent of lawyers in the nation are members.
Our firm can negotiate for a just settlement, but we will not be afraid to file a lawsuit when an insurance company is unwilling to extend a fair offer that accounts not only for your current expenses but also the expenses and losses you’ll experience in the future. Jurewitz Law Group Injury & Accident Lawyers also does all of this on a contingency fee basis, which means that you won’t pay us a single penny until we win your case.
Types of Burn Injury Cases We Handle
The most common kind of burn injury is usually thermal burns, which involve contact with fire, hot objects, hot liquid, or steam. Other types of burns may include chemical burns or alkali burns caused by contact with chemical substances and electrical burns caused by contact with electricity.
Burn injuries are classified by degrees, and higher-degree burns are more serious than the lower degrees. The three most common degrees of burn injuries generally include:
- First-Degree Burns — A minor, superficial burn affecting only the outer layer of the skin (the epidermis). First-degree burns usually involve redness and pain as well as possible dry and peeling skin, but they typically heal in a matter of days without any scarring. Sunburn is the most common example of a first-degree burn, which can usually be treated at home without medical attention.
- Second-Degree Burns — A superficial partial thickness or deep partial thickness burn damaging not only the epidermis but also second layer of skin (the dermis). Second-degree burns can cause blistering and extreme pain. These burns can take several weeks to heal. Superficial partial thickness second-degree burns cause more redness while deep partial thickness second-degree burns may be yellow or white and could involve possible scarring.
- Third-Degree Burns — Full-thickness burn extending through the dermis into sweat glands and underlying tissues. Skin is usually white or brown and leathery, with skin grafting always being required and surgery also could be required in some cases.
Other degrees of burn injuries are less common. The higher degrees of burns include fourth-degree burn injuries that extend into the fat, fifth-degree burn injuries that extend into the muscle, and sixth-degree burn injuries that extend into the bone.
The actual cause of a burn injury depends on the type of accident a person was involved in. Fires could arise in common home or workplace accidents, but may also be connected to other accidents such as:
- Car Accidents — When a fuel system on a motor vehicle is ruptured in a car crash, there is an increased risk of a fire. Fires in automobile accidents are extremely frightening for vehicle occupants who can frequently be unable to escape from the vehicles in time to avoid burn injuries.
- Truck Accidents — Large commercial trucks may be more likely to cause damage that creates a fire, but they could also be transporting flammable cargo or hazardous materials.
- Motorcycle Accidents — Fuel leaks on motorcycles can contribute to possible fires in some accidents that cause burn injuries. Such fires can be more complex because maintenance companies or parts manufacturers could be liable in some cases.
- Premises Liability — Property owners in California have a responsibility to correct or warn their guests about any hazardous conditions. Failure to fix an issue that leads to a fire causing burn injuries could make a property owner liable for damages.
- Defective Products — Fires or burn injuries can result from a variety of different consumer products that were either dangerous or inherently unsafe. A product liability action will usually be based on a design defect, manufacturing defect, or failure to warn.
When a person dies from their burn injuries, the victim’s family can file a wrongful death lawsuit against the negligent party or parties.
Frequently Asked Questions
How are burn injuries treated?
With a minor burn injury, you can treat the injury yourself by covering the burn with a non-adhesive bandage or cloth. Wound dressings are commonly used in treating higher degree burns. A moderate burn injury is usually treated with a transparent or nearly transparent dressing for wounds called hydrocolloid dressing. Hydrogel dressings are used for burn injuries involving blisters. Third-degree burn treatment can include skin grafting, physical therapy, and debriding, which is damaged tissue being removed from a wound.
What is a skin graft?
A skin graft is another name for a skin transplant, and skin grafts have specific names that depend on the type of skin graft being used as the source of donor skin. An autologous or autograph is donor skin taken from a different site on the victim’s body. An isogeneic, isograft, or syngraft is a donor and victim who are genetically identical. An allogeneic or allograft is a donor and victim of the same species while a heterograft, xenogeneic, or xenograft is a donor and victim of different species. A prosthetic graft involves lost tissue being replaced with synthetic materials.
What is the “Rule of Nines”?
The Rule of Nines refers to the Wallace rule of nines, a chart of the human body used to estimate the total body surface area (BSA) affected by a burn. The chart assigns percentages to specific areas of the body such that a physician simply adds up the corresponding regions to determine the BSA affected. The chart is referred to as the Rule of Nines because most body parts (the entire left arm and right arm, abdomen, and chest [as well as the whole head of an adult]) involve 9 percent BSA, but the left or right leg and full back are 18 percent each while the groin is 1 percent. The head represents 18 percent for children while the entire right or left leg accounts for only 13.5 percent.
Contact a San Diego Burn Injury Attorney Today
Did you or your loved one sustain catastrophic burn injuries in an accident caused by another party’s negligence in Southern California? Contact Jurewitz Law Group Injury & Accident Lawyers as soon as possible to speak with a member of our team right away. We hate to see anyone who has been hurt by negligence get screwed by greedy insurance companies who advertise themselves as “being on your side” but are, in actuality, looking to increase their own profits.
Our team knows how to deal with these entities and their unscrupulous legal teams, and we’ll stand up for you and your family if you’ve been badly burned in an accident that was not your fault.
Our firm has a record of success that includes several verdicts and settlements that far exceed the amounts initially offered by insurance companies. Call (855) 236-1324 or contact us online to receive a free consultation with one of our experienced burn injury lawyers today.
