Burn Injury Lawyer in Williamsport, PA

Types of Burn Injuries

Burns to the skin can be caused by fires‚ flammable liquids and gases‚ hot liquid or steam‚ or by chemicals, and are usually categorized into four main types:

• Thermal burns – caused by contact with flames, steam, hot liquids, or other sources of intense heat
• Light burns – caused by contact with sunlight or sources of ultraviolet light
• Chemical burns – caused by contact with an acid or alkali
• Radiation burns – caused by contact with nuclear radiation or ultraviolet light.

Common accidents that cause burns are car accidents, house or workplace fires and explosions, and defective products. The most common causes of serious burn injuries are flames and scalding.

Common Causes of Burn Injuries

People suffer burn injuries in many different settings. Though they are most common in our homes, they can also happen on our roads and in our workplaces. The cause of your burn injury will determine what type of personal injury claim you might file. For example, a burn caused by a landlord’s negligence is most likely a premises liability claim, while a burn suffered in a car crash will be a vehicle accident personal injury claim.

Common accidents that cause burns are:

• Car accidents
• Home fires
• Workplace fires, explosions, and spills
• Explosions involving defective products
• Water heaters set to dangerously high temperatures.

Contact Rieders, Travis, Dohrmann, Mowrey, Humphrey & Waters to schedule a free consultation with an experienced burn injury lawyer.

Contact a Burn Injury Lawyer For a Free Legal Consultation Now

If you or a loved one has suffered burns from an accident that was not your fault, the experienced Williamsport burn injury attorneys of Rieders, Travis, Dohrmann, Mowrey, Humphrey & Waters can help you get the compensation you deserve. If someone has suffered a wrongful death as a result of a burn injury, we can help family members seek compensation for the loss of love, comfort, companionship and financial support.

We offer personal attention and loyalty to every client, aggressively fighting for their rights whether in settlement negotiations or pursuing a favorable trial verdict. With our size-able staff, we provide strength in numbers and top-notch personal service to answer questions, gather evidence, handle your paperwork and medical bills, and deal with insurance companies. Rieders, Travis, Dohrmann, Mowrey, Humphrey & Waters will invest all our resources to build a persuasive case on your behalf.

Do not delay. If you or your loved one has been involved in a burn injury, your next step should be to contact a Williamsport PA burn injury lawyer by calling (570) 323-8711 or by using our online contact form. Based in Williamsport, we serve clients throughout the state of Pennsylvania, offering a free consultation on all injury matters. More than that, we offer you experience, knowledge, compassion, and a long history of results.

Treatments for Burn Injury

A burn covering 30 percent of the body can cost as much as $200,000 in initial hospitalization costs and physician fees, and more extensive burns add costs for reconstruction and rehabilitation. Generally, older adults and children will need to be hospitalized for second degree burns that cover more than 15% of their total body surface.

Fortunately, there have been medical advances in resuscitation practices, wound cleaning and follow-up care, nutritional support, grafting techniques and materials, and infection control, and these have greatly increased survivability. But survival often necessitates long-term follow-up care.

Treatment for burn injuries includes:

• Skin grafts – removing skin from one area of the body and transferring it to the burned area. Grafts from skin banks are sometimes used temporarily to cover and to protect against infection, reduce pain, reduce fluid loss, and allow the tissues underneath to heal.
• Dermabrasion or derma-planing – can smooth scars by resurfacing the skin’s top layers through surgical scraping.
• Skin substitutes, or cultured skin – involve growing a patient’s skin in the laboratory, and expanding it to help cover the injury.
• Medication – varies depending on the severity and location of the burn. Medications differ for thermal, electrical and chemical burns, as electrical burns need hydration while thermal burns need analgesics and topical antibiotics. Chemical burns are often treated with topical antibiotics, calcium and magnesium salts. Larger and deeper second-degree burns may require narcotic pain medication.

• Reconstructive surgery
• Rehabilitation of affected parts and physical therapy
• Occupational therapy
• Emotional counseling – for dealing with the pain, disfigurement, and change in life style.

Burn injuries to eyelids, hands, feet, and groin may require assisted living arrangements until the injury begins to heal. Also, burn injuries may worsen several conditions, including diabetes, kidney failure, congestive heart failure, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Because treatment is so expensive and may go for long periods of time, burn injury victims should seek legal counsel to determine if they are entitled to compensation to cover medical and treatment costs, plus pain and suffering.

Categories of Burn Injuries

Burns are categorized into three categories‚ according to their severity:

• First-degree burns damage only the outer layer of skin. The result is usually reddened skin that heals in about a week.
• Second-degree burns damage the first two layers of skin. These burns are characterized by deep reddening of the skin, pain, blisters, glossy appearance from leaking fluid, and possible loss of some skin.
• Third-degree burns involve damage to all of the layers of skin‚ plus the tissues below the surface of the skin. This level of burn is serious‚ and may include complications such as infection and death. This type of burn produces a white or black dry wound, followed by permanent scarring.

How Much Does a Burn Injury Lawyer Cost?

The burn injury attorneys at Rieders, Travis, Dohrmann, Mowrey, Humphrey & Waters work on a contingency fee basis, which means that you pay us no fee unless we win your case. People coping with the fallout of a serious burn injury are already facing an incredible challenge. They shouldn’t have to worry about the financial impact of a legal claim, too.

We know that our team will do everything possible to get our clients the compensation and care they deserve. We also want our clients to know that they won’t be burdened financially if their claim is unsuccessful. These are the reasons we work on contingency fee.

Finding Out Who is Responsible

Our attorneys will investigate the circumstances surrounding your injury to determine who was responsible. In some cases, the at-fault party is obvious. In others, investigations reveal surprising facts that lead us to name additional parties in a lawsuit. Let’s look at a hypothetical case to get a better understanding of liability in burn injury cases.

A tenant suffers a serious scalding injury in his apartment because the water in his shower is set too high. The tenant believes that his landlord is solely responsible for his injuries. However, after the tenant’s attorney investigates the facts of the case, he finds out that a company was hired to install new water heaters, and they failed to properly set the temperature of the water. The landlord might still be partially responsible, but another party – the company that installed the device – is also responsible for the injuries the tenant suffered.

Every case has its own set of circumstances that deserves scrutiny. It’s very important to name all responsible parties to ensure that a client has the best chance at getting compensation that reflects the damages they’ve suffered.

At Rieders, Travis, Dohrmann, Mowrey, Humphrey & Waters, we will get to the bottom of what and who caused your injuries, so you can be sure that the at-fault parties and their insurance companies give you the payment you need.

Put Cliff Rieders On Your Case