Houston Burn Injury Lawyer

A First Responder helps a burn injury victim

The National Fire Protection Association says that approximately every 60 seconds someone in the U.S. sustains a burn injury serious enough to require medical care. A burn injury is among the most painful injuries and can require months of treatment and rehabilitation. A Houston burn injury lawyer can help.

In Houston and across Texas, people of all ages suffer burn injuries. The most common causes of serious burns are:

If you or your loved one has sustained a burn injury due to someone else’s carelessness or disregard for safety, you may have a legal right to seek compensation from the at-fault party for your medical expenses and other losses. If you suffered a burn injury in a workplace accident and your employer has workers’ compensation insurance, you may claim workers’ compensation benefits including paid medical care and replacement of lost wages.

What Should I Do After A Burn Injury?

It’s important to consider all your options because a serious burn (third or fourth degree) requires hospitalization for specialized care that may include numerous rounds of surgery followed by rehabilitation therapy. Medical bills can amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

An experienced Houston burn injury attorney at Fleming Law can review your burn accident and discuss whether filing a burn injury claim is appropriate in your situation. Our lawyers have more than 30 years of experience helping individuals injured in workplace accidents, car and truck accidents, and other unexpected events all around Houston. If you or your loved one has been injured, contact us now.

Sources and Severity of Houston Burn Injuries

Burn injuries are caused by the transfer of heat from an outside source to human body tissue. This may be caused by:

  • Fire, including structure fires, motor vehicle fires, brush fires, bonfires, and campfires.
  • Open flame, including stoves, wood stoves, grills, candles, fireworks, welding and cutting torches, and smoking.
  • Hot liquids or vapors (scalds), such as steam, grease, food, beverages, and tap water.
  • Explosions of ignitable gases (acetylene, ammonia, hydrogen, propane, propylene, and methane), flammable liquids (gasoline, diesel fuel, kerosene, butane), welding, chemical or demolition explosions at work sites, and fireworks.
  • Contact burns (touching hot objects), including heaters and heating equipment, car radiators, machinery, kitchen equipment, and cooking utensils, hot metal, hot tar, asphalt.
  • Electricity / electrical currents, such as from machinery, power tools, appliances, frayed cords, and power lines.
  • Chemical burns, including gasoline, acids, lye, and paint thinner.
  • Radiation, including infrared radiation from the sun (sunburn) and x-rays or other medical or workplace machinery.

The depth of a burn injury can range from the discomfort of a mild sunburn to the deadly seriousness of a fourth-degree burn injury. The severity of a burn is rated according to the amount of damage it does to the victim’s body:

  • A first-degree burn damages the outer layer of skin, without blistering. A typical sunburn is a first-degree burn.
  • A second-degree burn damages the epidermis and the underlying dermis and includes blistering. Deep second-degree burns can leave scars.
  • A third-degree burn destroys both layers of skin and underlying tissue and may cause nerve damage. A third-degree burn usually requires skin grafts to repair the damage.
  • A fourth-degree burn damages muscle, tendons, and bone and is usually fatal. A fourth-degree burn may blacken or char the skin.

A first-degree burn may be treated with ice or cold water and over-the-counter pain relievers. A second-degree burn should be seen by a doctor. A third- or fourth-degree burn, or a burn that covers the face, groin, a large joint, or a large portion of the body, is a medical emergency.

Severely injured burn victims require hospitalization and, in most cases, surgery. Surgery may include:

  • The removal of dead, loose, or contaminated skin and other tissue.
  • Skin grafting involves taking healthy skin from other sites on the patient’s body to repair burn areas.
  • Cosmetic surgery to repair scarring and disfigurement.

A severely burned patient may suffer a variety of potentially fatal complications, including infections and hypothermia due to the loss of the protection provided by the skin. Many people who are severely burned go into shock soon after their accident.

Burnt patient covered with bandage.Burns can cause disfiguring scars. A burn victim may be permanently and totally disabled and require assistive or adaptive mobility devices (i.e., walkers, wheelchairs) or a life care plan for managing their ongoing medical needs and costs. Houston Burn Injury Lawyer.

How Do You Prove Liability in a Houston Burn Injury Case?

To prepare a case for you to recover compensation after a burn injury, a Houston burn injury attorney at Fleming Law would investigate your accident independently of local fire, police, and other first responders. We would seek to determine the source of the fire, chemical, or electrical malfunction that caused your injury and who or what organization should be held accountable.

Individuals who work in industrial settings are the most likely to be burned in an occupational accident. Workplace burn injuries are often caused by contact with hot objects such as tools and machinery, electrical currents, caustic chemicals, or flammable gasses. Workers are most likely to be burned on the head, face, arms, or upper body.

In many cases, a workplace burn injury could have been avoided if the employer had adhered to workplace safety guidelines and other OSHA regulations. An individual injured on the job in Texas may be able to obtain workers’ compensation, but Texas does not require employers to carry workers’ comp insurance. If your employer decided not to provide workers’ compensation insurance protection to employees, then Texas law allows you to bring an injury claim against your employer related to a workplace accident.

A worker who suffered a serious burn on the job might instead pursue a personal injury lawsuit against their employer who does not carry workers’ comp insurance or a third party responsible for causing or contributing to the accident. A third-party claim might be possible if:

  • Negligence on the part of someone other than a direct employer, such as a subcontractor or a vendor working at the same job site, caused the burn accident
  • A defective product caused a burn injury.

Of course, a personal injury claim would also be available to an individual who suffered a burn in a nonoccupational accident caused by another party, such as in a car accident or truck accident.

Please be aware, the state of Texas has a Statute of Limitations on personal injury claims. You have two years from the date of the injury to file your claim.

What Compensation Is Available for a Houston Burn Injury Claim?

The compensation or damages available in a Texas personal injury claim include money for:

  • Medical expenses
  • Lost income
  • Loss of earning capacity
  • Pain and suffering
  • Mental anguish.

Workers Injured by Explosions & Burns

An explosion, home fire, electrocution, or other accident can cause permanent disfiguring scars as well as emotional scars which can be difficult to recover from. At the Fleming Law law firm, our workplace injury, and wrongful death attorneys help burn victims recover compensation through personal injury and product liability lawsuits.
Additionally, the attorneys guide family members through wrongful death lawsuits following a fatal explosion accident or fire. We help injured individuals and their families obtain rightful compensation so that they can focus on moving past the accident. Contact the burn injury lawyers at Fleming Law.
Our lawyers are experienced in handling burn injury and wrongful death claims that occur as a result of defective products, mechanical failures, defective wiring, or other negligence. Our firm handles burn injury cases stemming from various fatal and catastrophic accidents, such as:

  • Car fires
  • Electrical fires
  • Electrocutions
  • Propane tank explosions
  • Natural gas explosions
  • Gas tank explosions
  • Chemical explosions
  • Gulf of Mexico Explosions
  • Industrial Accidents
  • Plant Explosions
  • Construction Accidents
  • Construction Site Fires
  • Other accidents

Electrical burns, second-degree burns, and third-degree burns will require special medical treatment. Individuals who have sustained such a severe burn injury may spend significant amounts of time in burn centers, may require skin graft surgery or plastic surgery, or may need future physical therapy to recover mobility in the injured area.

At the Fleming Law law firm, we recognize that while such medical treatment is necessary, it is also costly. It is important to consult an experienced burn injury lawyer to ensure that you recover the full compensation to alleviate the financial burdens caused by the accident. If you or a loved one has been electrocuted, involved in an explosion, or involved in another serious accident, contact the burn injury attorneys at our Texas law firm.

Contact Us About Your Houston Burn Injury

Our Houston burn injury attorneys handle all cases on a contingency fee basis. That means you don’t owe us a fee unless we win your case. Contact Houston bury injury lawyer Fleming Law now for a free consultation to find out more about how we can help with your burn injury claim.