Georgia Injury Law Blog
Last week, the American Burn Association commemorated National Burn Awareness Week, to highlight the dangers to children and adults from fire and burn hazards. Although the focus of the American Burn Association tends to be towards household burn hazards, Atlanta injury attorneys often come across victims who have suffered serious burn injuries in car accidents, truck accidents, and workplace accidents.
Burn injuries are easily some of the most traumatic injuries that a person can suffer. A burn injury victim can expect severe pain over the short-term, and scarring, paralysis and impaired nerve function over the long-term. The hours and days after a serious burn injury can be critical for a patient. In such cases, the skin may have been severely burned down to the deeper layers, and the patient may be at a high risk of infections.
Once the patient is discharged from the hospital, he or she could be looking at a long period of taking care of the injury and the wound site. The patient will have to be on medication for a few weeks, and will be asked to be on plenty of fluids. The injury site will be cleaned periodically, and, patients will have to take care to avoid contamination of the wound.
Patients may also need occupational and physical therapy, because of the risk of muscle weakness and joint stiffness after an injury. The return of normal function of the muscles and tendons may depend on what kind of burn injuries the person has suffered. Patients with severe burns may also require cosmetic surgery to restore the normal appearance of the skin.
Burn injuries can involve not just short term medical expenses, but also sustained therapy, rehabilitation, surgery and medication costs over the long term too. Your accident claim therefore should factor in these costs too.