Smoke filled the air and the heat began to get intense. Your eyes were watering and it was all you could do to keep yourself from simply stopping and huddling with fear from what was happening all around you. As you crawled across the floor of your second floor apartment you tried to remember everything you had ever heard about surviving a fire. Hopefully, those things would get you to the fire escape and fresh air and safety!
Every year people across the United States are harmed in fires. The fires have a variety of causes and a variety of impacts, but the pain and suffering caused form all of them is the same. Information related to burns in the United States is compiled from a broad variety of information, including the national health care and fire casualty surveys, selected state health data, and the National Burn Repository of the American Burn Association.
In 2011, there were nearly one half million burn injuries that received medical treatment. Estimated from federal surveys of hospital admission data, most of these burns are likely to be minor, but the estimates are unreliable.
In 2014, there were an estimated 3,275 fire or smoke inhalation related deaths. The majority of those deaths, 2,745, were from residential fires. Of the remaining deaths, 310 were from vehicle crash fires and 220 were from other sources. Fire and smoke inhalation deaths are combined because it is difficult to distinguish the actual cause of death when the exposures are concurrent.
Burn injury is a major cause of admission to hospitals, with 40,000 people being admitted in 2010. Burn centers in hospitals received the highest number of those admissions with approximately 30,000. More than 60% of these injuries were admitted to 128 United States burn centers.
Although there are a high number of hospital admissions from burn related injuries, they have high success rate. The survival rate between 2005 and 2014 is 96.8%. The majority are males (68%), and Caucasian (59%). The causes of admission were mostly exposure to fire or flame at 43% and scald at 34%. Other types of exposure were contact, electrical, chemical, and other unidentified exposures. The major place of occurrence was in the home at 73%, with the others occurring either at work, on the streets, or in a recreational setting.
Burns can have a long term impact on your life. If you or someone you know has been injured by a burn caused by the negligence of another, contact the Alexander Law Group, LLP. We help clients and their families receive proper compensation for their pain and suffering. You can reach one of our San Francisco personal injury attorneys at 888.777.1776, or you can contact us online.
