First minutes, first hours
Chemical: flush with running water immediately and keep flushing — 20+ minutes — while someone finds the Safety Data Sheet (bring it to the ER; it changes treatment). Electrical: always get evaluated even if skin looks minor — the real injury travels internally, and cardiac monitoring exists for a reason. Thermal: cool water, no ice, no ointments; anything bigger than the palm, blistering on face/hands/joints, or circumferential goes to the ER. Severe burns belong at a burn center — you can ask for that transfer by name.
How burn treatment and claims unfold
- 1
Acute care
Cleaning, debridement, infection control — and for deeper burns, skin grafts. Burn depth gets re-assessed over days; early "second-degree" burns sometimes declare themselves deeper. Photograph healing stages; the record fades as the skin improves.
- 2
The long middle
Compression garments, scar management, and physical therapy to keep grafted and scarred skin from contracting — especially across joints. This unglamorous phase decides your function; attendance is everything, medically and legally.
- 3
Late reconstruction
Scar revisions, contracture releases, laser treatment — often a year or more out. Classic future-medical items that must be counted before any full-and-final settlement.
- 4
Rating what remains
Burns rate on motion loss from contractures, skin integrity, heat/cold intolerance, and — separately in many states — disfigurement.
What burns mean for your claim
- Claim the disfigurement award. Many states pay separately for visible permanent scarring — face, neck, hands especially. It's measured, photographed, and routinely never claimed because nobody mentions it. Mention it.
- Severe burns are catastrophic-tier. They lift Georgia's 400-week caps, and drive enhanced benefits elsewhere. Serious burns warrant representation, full stop.
- The psychological injury is part of the claim. Anxiety, nightmares, and distress about disfigurement flowing from a physical burn are compensable in most states — treat them and claim them like any other consequence.
- Burns love third-party questions. Defective equipment, mislabeled chemicals, another contractor's torch — burn cases frequently support lawsuits beyond comp. Preserve the product, the label, the SDS.
- Heat and sun exposure counts. Outdoor-work burns and heat injuries are work injuries; report them like any other.