Burn Injury Resource Center

Near Chicago last month, three people--one of them a baby--were rescued from a basement fire. It is almost a miracle they survived after suffering smoke inhalation and falling unconscious before they could escape on their own.

The suburban Des Plaines Fire Department responded to a call about people trapped in a burning residence about 6:45 p.m. Firefighters were dispatched and arrived at the scene in about four minutes. They saw that most the flames and smoke were coming from the basement, so they moved into that area first and found three victims.

Two victims, a woman and a male baby, were unconscious. Firefighters removed them from the building and were able to resuscitate them before transferring them to an ambulance. The third victim, a woman, suffered minor burns and smoke inhalation.

The three victims were taken to Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, and all indications were that they would survive the ordeal. "Our guys arrived quickly and they did an outstanding job of locating the victims, getting them out, and resuscitating them," said the Des Plains fire chief. "It could very well have been a much worse tragedy." If it took one or two more minutes for firefighters to respond, all three victims would have died from smoke inhalation or third degree burns.

After an investigation, it was determined that a gasoline can was accidentally dropped down the basement stairs and caused the fire when a water heater ignited fumes coming from the can. The victims were renting the basement apartment, so it is not yet clear if the owner of the house has legal liability for injuries the victims suffered. If there was negligence in leaving the gas can near the stairs that led down to the water heater, then the victims could sue the landlord to compensate them for their injuries.

The lesson to be learned from this story is that containers which hold gasoline, kerosene, paint thinner, or propane gas DO NOT belong in or near a house or apartment. Why? Because the fumes that come from even an empty container can catch fire from a nearby source of heat or flame--or even from a tiny spark of static electricity!

If you or someone you know suffers an injury such as third degree burns or smoke inhalation, you should call Kramer & Pollack LLP in Mineola, New York so that the personal injury attorneys in that firm can determine whether another party has legal liability for injury suffered, and if the injured party has a strong legal case.

In Poughkeepsie, NY last week, a fire tore through a private home being rented by Marist College students near the campus. The fire killed killed two students and one former student. Four other people in the house escaped without serious injuries.

The off-campus house was being rented by six female Marist students. At about 1:30 a.m., the fire was initially reported to 911 by someone driving past the house. There were seven people in the house at that moment: four female residents and three male guests.

The local police chief said the occupants had gone to bed about an hour before the fire was called into authorities. "There was no issue that the occupants were aware of in the house when they went to bed," he said, basing his comments on interviews with the four survivors.

At least two of the occupants jumped through a window to safety after realizing that the house was engulfed in flames--which shows just how quickly this fire had spread. In fact, the first firefighters to respond to the emergency tried to get into the house, but were forced back by heat and flames.

One victim was found on the second floor of the house, one was downstairs and the third was under "considerable collapsed debris," the police chief said. The four survivors were taken to a hospital, where they were treated and released. They were treated for minor smoke inhalation and other minor injuries and were able to speak to police.

The cause of the fire remains under investigation, though the fire chief said the fire is believed to have started in the rear of the first floor. It is not yet know if the house had working smoke detectors.

There are lessons for all of us to learn from this tragedy.

First, everyone in a house should know where all the exits are--including windows--in the room where they will sleep. If a fire happens overnight, there are only seconds left to think and act. It is critical to know where the windows are in a room, because by the time people realize there is a fire, it might have spread too far through the house for occupants to safely escape through a door.

Second, if there is smoke in the air, you must immediately get down on the floor and move towards the door or window with your face as close to the floor as possible. During a fire, the cleanest, safest air to breathe is down at floor level. If you stand up, it takes only one or two breaths of smoky air (which is filled with poisonous gases such as hydrogen cyanide and carbon monoxide) to make you unconscious and unable to escape.

Third, occupants should make sure that there are working smoke detectors inside their house or apartment--it does not matter if the occupants own the place or rent it. While the owner of a house or apartment has the legal obligation to install smoke detectors, and would have legal liability if any occupant suffered third degree burns or smoke inhalation from a fire where there were no smoke detectors, the occupants should be proactive about fire safety too. So make sure there are smoke detectors near the kitchen and in the hallways near the bedrooms--and also make sure that each one has a working battery.

Smoke detectors save many lives each year--especially during overnight fires. So make it your job to have working smoke alarms inside the place where you live.

If you or someone you know suffers an injury such as third degree burns or smoke inhalation, you should call Kramer & Pollack LLP in Mineola, New York so that the personal injury attorneys in that firm can determine whether another party has legal liability for injury suffered, and if the injured party has a strong legal case.

A family in Clinton, Iowa is teaming up with firefighters around the midwestern U.S. to turn a terrible tragedy into an educational program that will probably save many people from suffering deadly smoke inhalation or severe burns due to house fires.

Four members of the town's Molitor family--two young boys, their mother, and their grandmother--all died of smoke inhalation after a chair caught fire in their Clinton home two years ago. The most heartbreaking aspect is that this was a small fire, which started in a chair. Unfortunately, the burning chair generated a lot of smoke quickly, and the family members who stayed too long in the house (rather than evacuating immediately and calling 911 from outside) were overcome by smoke, fell unconscious, and died. It takes just one or two breaths of smoky air to make a person pass out. In fact, 70 percent of all fire deaths are from smoke inhalation, not burns.

Furthermore, "there was not a smoke detector in the house, and there wasn't even a heat detector," said one family member recently. "There was nothing to alert some of them until it was too late. That is the worst part about it--this tragedy could have been prevented."

But since the fire, the family and the Clinton Fire Department have found a way to use this great loss to help save others. "The best thing we could do was get that information out to the public so it doesn't happen to anyone else," says one local fire official. So the Clinton FD created the "smoke detector project" just days after the fire. They will provide a smoke detector to anyone who needs one, for free--they'll even install it.

In the last two years the Clinton FD has installed more than 2,500 smoke detectors, and their program is now being instituted across the state. Also, Iowa firefighters are working to create a national smoke detector project.

The best part: The local smoke detector project has already saved a number of lives, which makes the Molitor family's terrible loss a little easier to bear. "If one life was saved, that is more than enough for them to use our last name in publicizing the program," said one Molitor family member. "If a thousand lives can be saved, I'll say that my family members' lives were not lost in vain."

Iowa's Smoke Detector Project is organized by fire marshals from around the state. Other states around the country also have free smoke detector programs. For information on obtaining a free smoke detector, call your local fire department or type in the words "free smoke detector" plus the name of your state into www.Google.com.

If you or someone you know suffers an injury such as third degree burns or smoke inhalation, you should call Kramer & Pollack LLP in Mineola, New York so that the personal injury attorneys in that firm can determine whether another party has legal liability for injuries suffered, and if the injured party has a strong legal case.

A study by researchers at Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine generated some surprising findings about the response of the immune system in victims of severe burns and smoke inhalation.

Contrary to expectations, patients who died from their injuries had lower inflammatory responses in their lungs than the patients who survived. "Perhaps a better understanding of this early immune dysfunction will allow for therapies that further improve outcomes in burn care," researchers reported.

The study was published in the January/February issue of the Journal of Burn Care & Research. First author of the study was Christopher S. Davis, MD, MPH, a research resident in the Loyola Burn & Shock Trauma Institute. Assisting him was Elizabeth J. Kovacs, PhD, director of research of the Burn & Shock Trauma Institute.

Researchers followed 60 burn patients in the Loyola Burn Center. As expected, patients with the worst combined severe burn and smoke inhalation injuries required more time on a ventilator, in the intensive care unit, and in the hospital. They also were more likely to die. Also in line with expectations was this finding: Patients who died were older and had larger injuries on the whole than patients who survived.

But the immune system findings were not expected. Researchers measured concentrations of 28 immune system modulators in fluid collected from the lungs of patients within 14 hours of burn and smoke inhalation injuries. These modulators are proteins produced by white blood cells and other cells such as those that line a person's airway. Some of these modulators recruit white blood cells (leukocytes) to areas of tissue damage, or activate them to begin the repair process within damaged tissue.

Based on studies conducted at Loyola and other centers, researchers had expected to find higher concentrations of modulators in the fluid of patients who died, because sicker patients tend to have greater inflammatory responses. However, researchers found the opposite: Most patients who died had lower concentrations of these modulators in their lungs.

The question is this: Why do some patients mount robust immune responses in the lungs after smoke inhalation and burn injuries, while others do not? The reason may be due to a few things working together: age, genetics, differences in patients' pre-existing health conditions, or anything that might disrupt the balance between too much and too little inflammation.

Survival of severe burn patients has significantly improved since the 1950s, due to advancements such as better wound care and treatment and prevention of infections. But progress has somewhat stalled in the last 10 years.

The immune response to lung injury from smoke or burns "remains not completely understood, and additional effort is required to improve survival of burn-injured patients," researchers wrote.

The study was presented at the 2011 meeting of the American Burn Association, where it won the 2011 Carl A. Moyer Resident Award for the best study submitted by a resident physician. The study was funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health, Department of Defense, International Association of Fire Fighters and the Dr. Ralph and Marian C. Falk Medical Research Trust.

Loyola's Burn Center is one of the busiest in the Midwest, treating more than 600 patients annually in the hospital, and another 3,500 patients each year in its clinic. It is one of only two centers in Illinois that have received verification by the American Burn Association.

The study is among the results of research over the last several years conducted in Loyola's Burn Center and its Burn & Shock Trauma Institute, the latter of which is investigating the lung's response to burn and inhalation injuries.

Here's a story that provides a very good lesson for all of us on the need to think about fire safety not just at home, but also when walking around in stores, malls, and other public places.

In early January in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada, four people had to be treated for smoke inhalation after a fire broke out in a store. A clothing shop caught fire at about 8:15 p.m. on a Friday night, and firefighters were called away from a small fire in another neighborhood to fight the shop fire.

On arrival, fire crews found the fire was already extinguished. But even so, there were people in need of medical treatment, so paramedics were called in. Two ambulances and a rapid response vehicle were sent to treat three females who suffered smoke inhalation. They were taken to Peterborough City Hospital for further care.

Now, it is unlikely that many people think about where the nearest public exits or emergency exits are located when they enter a store, or a mall, or a sports arena, or another public place. But if you do not know where the exits are located, you have shortened the amount of time you have to escape and survive if a fire does break out.

So, always find the nearest public exit or emergency exit as you enter any building. Why? Because fire smoke spreads quickly, and is so poisonous with carbon monoxide and hydrogen cyanide that inhaling just one or two breaths of fire smoke can make a person unconscious and unable to escape. And even if an unconscious person is rescued by someone else, damage to the lungs, heart and brain from smoke inhalation can be permanent, forever changing a person's life.

If you or someone you know does suffer an injury such as third-degree burns or smoke inhalation, you should call Kramer & Pollack LLP in Mineola, New York so that the personal injury attorneys in that firm can determine whether another party has legal liability for injuries suffered, and if the injured party has a strong legal case.

Winter is the time of year when home fires are more prevalent, and the Elgin, Illinois Fire Department offers excellent tips on how to stay safe as people try to stay warm in their homes.

"Winter storms can interrupt heating and electric service, and many times people attempt to heat their homes using alternative means, increasing the risk of fire," said Elgin Fire Chief John Fahy. "What's more, even cooking or trying to generate additional heat from traditional sources can also increase the risk of fire."

The United States Fire Administration reports that each winter, more than 108,000 residential building fires occur in the United States, resulting in 945 deaths, 3,825 injuries and about $1.7 billion in property loss.

Cooking is the leading cause of residential fires, followed by heating. And space heaters account for about one-third of home heating fires, plus about 80 percent of deaths from home heating fires, according to the USFA. And nearly 70 percent of these deaths are from smoke inhalation, and not from severe burns. Even a small kitchen fire that is contained to the stove top can produce enough smoke to kill occupants of the home--one or two breaths of poisonous smoke is all it takes!

Fahy recommends the following to keep you and your family safe this winter:

-If you are cooking anything on the stove, do NOT leave the kitchen while it cooks. Using the stove to fry, grill, or broil food creates an opportunity for something to catch fire. If you must leave the kitchen, turn off the stove!

-Give a space heater some space--keep anything that can burn at least three feet away from a space heater.

-Check electrical cords for cracks or exposed bits of wire, and replace those cracked or damaged electrical or extension cords. Do NOT try to repair them!

-Never use your oven or stove-top to heat your home. This is a fire hazard because they aren't designed to heat a home, and the carbon monoxide gas emitted from the burning gas could kill people or pets.

-Don't leave Christmas trees, wreaths, or cut flowers too long. Do NOT keep these items in the house longer than two weeks. And keep the tree stand or the flower vase filled with water. Dried-out trees, wreaths, and flowers burn very easily and quickly!

-If you use candles, place them in a sturdy candle-holder with a wide base, and which will not burn. Do NOT leave a room that has a burning candle in it--if you must leave the room, blow out the candle!

-If you smoke cigars, cigarettes or pipes, smoke outside the house and make sure all ashes and embers are extinguished by pouring a small amount of water on top of them. Many times, using your foot to put them out does NOT work!

The fire chief also made this very important point: "Most fires are preventable."

For more information about fire safety, go to the USFA website (see link above) and also visit the National Fire Protection Association.

If you or someone you know does suffer an injury such as severe burns or smoke inhalation, you should call Kramer & Pollack LLP in Mineola, New York so that the personal injury attorneys in that firm can determine whether another party has legal liability for injuries suffered, and if the injured party has a strong legal case.

In our last blog post, we wrote about five family members who died of smoke inhalation during a house fire in Connecticut. The fire raged so quickly through the wooden house that investigators still do not know if there were smoke alarms in the house that alerted the occupants.

But consider this: if these fire investigators think that people could have died in a fire even though there might have been smoke detectors in the house, how can anyone think that they could escape a fire when they do NOT have working smoke alarms in their house? Smoke inhalation kills people so quickly that even one or two breaths of air contaminated with smoke and carbon monoxide and hydrogen cyanide can render a person unconscious, and cause them to die even if they are rescued before suffering any third degree burns.

Here is just one recent example of such a situation: A woman died from smoke inhalation in Washougal, Washington in large part because the smoke detector in her apartment had been disconnected. The 28-year-old woman's apartment caught fire not while she was asleep, but right in the middle of the day! And the fire was not very big--it was contained to an upper-floor apartment and did not spread to the lower floor, and was extinguished within a few minutes. But the woman was found unconscious in a bedroom, and there were no other occupants in the apartment. The Clark County Fire Marshal's Office said a few days later that there was not a working smoke detector in the apartment--it had been disconnected.

"It's tragic, that is for certain," said the property manager. "We've done our best to reassure the other residents that there are no structural problems in the building. It appears that this was an anomaly. As far as we know, there are no electrical, structural or mechanical problems with the unit that would be of concern to the other residents." In other words, this fire might have started from something as simple as a pot or pan left on the hot stove and then forgotten.

If this tragic story does not convince you to install smoke detectors near the kitchen and the bedrooms of your home, and also to check the batteries and the working status of these smoke alarms regularly, then you are simply risking your life and the lives of others who come through there.

Lastly, if you or someone you know does suffer a smoke inhalation injury or severe burns, you should call Kramer & Pollack LLP in Mineola, New York so that the personal injury attorneys in that firm can determine whether another party has legal liability for injuries suffered, and if the injured party has a solid legal case.

A Connecticut house fire killed three children and two grandparents on Christmas morning, and it was possibly sparked by one careless act: Still-hot fireplace ashes were placed outside in the yard, but too close to the house.

The ashes from the family's Christmas Eve yule log were probably still smoldering when they were removed from the fireplace and dumped outside the 100-year-old wooden home. The overnight wind seems to have blown the embers against the wooden building, sparking the Christmas morning blaze.

The head of household, a 47-year-old woman, and male companion were the only ones to escape the furious fire, which gutted the home in just minutes. A 10-year-old girl and her seven-year-old twin sisters died in the inferno, as did the children's grandparents, who were visiting for the holidays. "My whole life is in there," the homeowner sobbed as emergency responders led her away from the burning home.

As details of the fire emerged this week, it was reported that the grandfather tried in vain to save one of his granddaughters, but was overcome by smoke inhalation. "He had the little girl with him [when we found his body]," said a fire chief. The victims were all found on the second and third floors of the home, where the rising smoke quickly accumulated.

Also, the family was doing the renovation work on the house, and the lumber and other construction materials around the house might have helped spread the flames very quickly. And it has not yet been determined whether the house had working smoke detectors.

There are a few lessons that we can all learn from this tragedy:

1. Every house or apartment should have smoke alarms so that people have enough time to escape from a burning building.

2. Third degree burns are not what kills most people in a fire. Instead, it only takes a few breaths of poisonous, smoke-filled air to be overcome by smoke inhalation, making a person unconscious and thus unable to escape the fire. And because smoke rises, the victims in this house fire were probably overcome by smoke very quickly because they were on the upper floors of the house, where the smoke would collect the fastest.

3. All occupants of a home or apartment should know the exits that are nearest to their bedrooms--including windows that they can escape through. This way, they will not waste time looking for an exit during a fire.

4. It is best to crawl on the floor to escape from a smoke-filled room, because smoke rises--remember, the safest air to breathe is down near the ground.

5. When doing renovation work to a house or apartment, be careful when storing flammable materials such as fuel for machinery or lumber. They should be placed away from the building so they cannot cause a fire or make a fire even more dangerous.

If you or someone you know does suffer a severe burn injury or a smoke inhalation injury, you should call Kramer & Pollack LLP in Mineola, New York so that the personal injury attorneys in that firm can determine whether another party has legal liability for injuries suffered, and if the injured party has a solid legal case.

On October 31 in the Chicago suburbs, a fire at a residential mental health facility early in the morning forced the evacuation of about 400 residents to a village community center, officials said.

A mattress fire, probably caused by cigarette smoking, broke out about 1 a.m. on the sixth floor of the Lydia Healthcare Center, a long-term care center in the south suburb of Robbins, Illinois. The building had to be closed because the fire sprinkler system was activated and the building then had to be cleaned. Most of the damage to the building was caused by smoke and water.

Three residents and one employee were taken to a local hospital to be treated for smoke inhalation, but none of the injuries were life-threatening. A representative of the American Red Cross of Greater Chicago said they were providing blankets and food for the displaced residents, and that they would be able to go back to the group home within a day or two.

This incident should be a lesson not only for those who live in group homes or nursing homes, but also for the families of people who live in such facilities.

Before a person is placed in a nursing home or group home, the family should make sure that:

--Fire exits are not blocked or locked
--There are fire extinguishers in several spots on each floor
--The sprinkler system on each floor is working and is also inspected regularly
--The facility staff is trained in proper evacuation procedures for residents.

Each of these tips can help save residents from a fast-moving fire or smoke condition that could cause confusion among residents and and then trap them, exposing them to the possibility of severe burns and deadly smoke inhalation.

If you or someone you know does suffer a severe burn injury or a smoke inhalation injury, you should call Kramer & Pollack LLP in Mineola, New York so that the personal injury attorneys in that firm can determine whether another party has legal liability for injuries suffered, and if the injured party has a solid legal case.

In Clear Spring, Maryland a few weeks back, an electrical malfunction in a stereo speaker caused a fire that sent a woman to the hospital to be treated for smoke inhalation. The woman was taken to Meritus Medical Center east of Hagerstown.

Authorities said the fire started at 5:46 a.m., when a stereo speaker on a living room shelf in the two-story home caught fire. The fire caused several hundred dollars in damages to the home and its contents. But even with so little damage, the fire required 15 firefighters from the towns of Clear Spring, Halfway, Maugansville, and Williamsport to hose down the house for five minutes to bring the fire under control.

Most importantly, a smoke alarm alerted the occupants of the fire. Without smoke detectors, the fire could have filled the house with hydrogen cyanide-laden smoke so quickly that the occupants would not have gotten out alive--and all because of a stereo speaker malfunction. Remember this story, so that you will make sure to check the batteries in the smoke alarms in your house.

In another story that was very close to being tragic, the New York Fire department saved the life of two adults and a baby after responding to an apartment fire in Brooklyn on Thanksgiving. The New York Daily News captured an amazing photo of Firefighter Andrew Hartshorne carrying the baby from the wreckage of the fire. Firefighter Neil Malone then gave the infant mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, furiously pumping the eight-month-old baby's chest and forcing air into his mouth, while praying the limp little boy would take a breath on his own. After five agonizing minutes where the firefighters were starting to give up hope, the baby finally coughed and began breathing on his own.

"I knew I was working against the clock -- every second is crucial," said Malone. "The baby was unresponsive, he had no pulse. It was about five minutes and thirty seconds that the baby was left without air. It didn't look good. But it's like a song to your ears when you hear that baby get its breath on its own."

The child's pulse returned, but he remained in critical condition the day after the Thanksgiving blaze. "The smoke has affected his lungs. He's still in danger," said the baby's father. The baby was heavily sedated and receiving intensive care at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center.

The child also suffered burns on much of his body, in addition to requiring an oxygen mask and breathing tube. The possibility of brain damage exists, but doctors will not know if any damage occurred for several days. "We are praying there was no oxygen deprivation" that causes brain injury, one family member said.

Fire Department investigators believe the fast-moving fire was ignited by a cigarette that touched a mattress. The fire tore through the third floor of the building, forcing one man to leap from a window to a second-floor ledge. The flames then blocked the brownstone's exits, trapping the terrified family inside.

"It was an inferno," Malone recalled. "I've seen a lot of fires in my 28 years [with the FDNY] but I've never seen this scope of devastation." Firefighters fought their way through the flames to get the adults out, and then find the baby on the floor. "The baby was covered in soot," said Malone. "To find him in all of that debris is just amazing."

"I'm not a hero, I'm just doing my job," Malone said when asked about it. "It was the best Thanksgiving I ever had."

If you or someone you know does suffer a severe burn injury or a smoke inhalation injury, you should call Kramer & Pollack LLP in Mineola, New York so that the personal injury attorneys in that firm can determine whether another party has legal liability for injuries suffered, and if the injured party has a solid legal case.

When it comes to extinguishing a fire, there is nothing to say except this: DO NOT try to do it yourself--call the fire department and let them fight the fire when they arrive.

In the event of a fire or a smoke condition, the only concern you should have is getting yourself and others away from the situation so that nobody suffers severe burns or smoke inhalation that can result in death.

You need some proof of how easy it is to become injured or killed by small fires? We have plenty:

1. In Foxboro, Massachusetts recently, a 15-year-old boy was taken to an area hospital suffering from smoke inhalation after trying to put out a bathroom fire in his home, one of two blazes that kept town firefighters busy Sunday afternoon.

Fire broke out around 3:30 p.m. in the first-floor bathroom of a three-family home, according to a local fire captain, He said that the teenager, who was later taken to Norwood Hospital for treatment, tried to douse the flames himself, but was unable to extinguish them.

There was heavy smoke and soot damage to the first floor of the home, leaving a family of four looking for somewhere to stay for the night.

"They're displaced, at least for the night," said the fire captain, adding that the American Red Cross had been notified. Luckily, the other tenants of the three-story house were able to stay there.

The call for the bathroom fire came into the fire department shortly after firefighters returned from battling a garage fire in another part of town. That fire, said the fire captain, was started when a pile of ash from a fireplace was put outside in a careless manner.

"The wind must have picked up," the fire captain said, adding that the embers from the ash must have re-ignited and blew towards a nearby wooden-framed, two-story detached garage. Most of the damage, estimated at about $10,000, was to the outside of the garage, with some smoke getting inside. Fire crews were there for a whole hour, but reported no injuries.

2. In Brick, New Jersey last week, a firefighter and a police officer were treated for smoke inhalation after responding to the report of a fire at a home. Upon arrival, police discovered a female homeowner outside--and her husband inside trying to douse the flames with a garden hose!

The homeowner told police that the fire started in a sun room at the rear of the house, and that her husband was still inside the now-engulfed house. One policeman entered the home through the garage and found the male homeowner at an inner doorway to the kitchen area, attempting to fight the spreading flames with a garden hose. The officer led the homeowner out of the structure. Firefighters then doused the flames that engulfed the not just the sun room but also kitchen area.

Both homeowners were treated for breathing difficulties at the scene by an EMS crew. The policemen and a firefighter were taken to Ocean Medical Center where they were treated smoke inhalation.

3. In Mankato, Minnesota, an autopsy found that a former county commissioner died two weeks ago of smoke inhalation while trying to contain a grass fire at his farm. The medical examiner found that the 77-year-old succumbed to carbon monoxide poisoning as he used a tractor in an apparent attempt to dig a ditch to stop the fire from spreading. The fire was reported by a neighbor, and when authorities arrived, the man's body was found slumped on his tractor.

4. In northern Indiana last week, an 87-year-old man died after he was burned trying to burn a pile of leaves near his home with gasoline. The man added gasoline to a pile of leaves but the fire got out of control, leaving him with burns to more than 90 percent of his body. He was pronounced dead at Loyola University Medical Center a few hours later.

If these four stories--all of which happened in the past few weeks--don't convince you to simply get away in the event of a fire or smoke condition and then call the experts for help, you are making the wrong decision.

On the other hand, if you or someone you know does suffer a severe burn injury or a smoke inhalation injury, you should call Kramer & Pollack LLP in Mineola, New York so that the personal injury attorneys in that firm can determine whether another party has legal liability for injuries suffered, and if the injured party has a solid legal case.

In Fort Peck, Montana in late October, a fire destroyed a historic landmark restaurant in eastern Montana and the owner was hospitalized after suffering smoke inhalation.

Fort Peck's Gateway Inn Bar and Supper Club, built in 1933, caught fire at about 11:30 a.m. on a Saturday, just as the lunch crowd was coming in. An assistant fire chief said that several customers were in the building at the time, but were able to escape.

A local sheriff also said that the restaurant owner made a near-fatal mistake by running back into the building to get some keys--that's when he suffered smoke inhalation. Although he was listed in good condition just one day after the fire, the owner's actions were very risky.

There are two lessons you should take from this story. First, anytime you go to a restaurant--or into any public building--you should locate all the exits you could possibly use in case of fire. At a restaurant in particular, a fire in the kitchen is not such a rare occurrence, and can spread very quickly because of grease and other flammable items located in a restaurant kitchen. The speed of such a fire might mean you will not have time to look for an exit once you realize there is an emergency, and you could suffer severe burns or smoke inhalation even before you reach a nearby door or window.

Second, once you escape from a building that has fire and smoke inside, NEVER go back inside to retrieve items. A burning building has become a death trap, and you can easily be overcome by smoke in just a few seconds. And once you become disoriented or unconscious from smoke inhalation, your odds of survival go down to almost zero because of the hydrogen cyanide, carbon monoxide, and other poison gases in the smoke--even if you get out of the building.

If you or someone you know suffers a burn injury or a smoke inhalation injury, you should call Kramer & Pollack LLP in Mineola, NY so that the personal injury attorneys in that firm can determine whether another party has legal liability for injuries suffered, and if the injured party has a solid legal case.

On October 6, 2011, the Fire Smoke Coalition launched the first Smoke Inhalation Treatment Database for use by EMTs, first responders and medical professionals throughout the world.

In the United States, residential fires are the third leading cause of fatal injury and the fifth most common cause of unintentional injury death, yet the majority of fire-related fatalities are NOT caused by severe burns--they are cause by smoke inhalation.

Despite the amount of fires in the U.S. decreasing each year, the amount of civilians dying in fires is actually increasing. For example, in 2009, 1,348,500 fires were attended by public fire departments, a decrease of 7.1 percent from the year before; however, 3,010 civilian fire deaths occurred, which is an increase of 9.3 percent.

In fire smoke, hydrogen cyanide can be up to 35 times more toxic than carbon monoxide, an underappreciated risk that can cause severe injury or death within minutes. In a review of major fires over a 19-year period, cyanide was found at toxic or lethal levels in the blood of approximately 33 percent to 87 percent of fatalities.

While many fire department medical directors and physicians have altered treatment protocols to consider cyanide as a deadly poison in smoke inhalation patients, thousands still have not. Until cyanide is presumed to be responsible along with carbon monoxide, especially in victims removed from closed-space structure fires, people will continue to die of what is actually a complicated illness. It cannot be assumed that carbon monoxide is the only poison requiring treatment, or that it is the sole cause of death.

The Coalition is requesting all medical providers and physicians to enter data following treatment to smoke inhalation victims. Information collected will be available to all medical professionals, day or night, and will hopefully provide insight into "new" treatment practices that include consideration of an antidote for cyanide poisoning associated with smoke inhalation--more than just hyperbaric chamber therapy that forces high amounts of oxygen into a patient to cleanse the lungs of carbon monoxide. There are only two FDA approved cyanide antidotes in the United States--the Cyanokit®, also known as Hydroxocobalamin, is one of them.

In April, the Congressional Fire Services Institute (CFSI) passed a resolution noting that there is mounting proof, obtained through atmospheric monitoring on fire grounds throughout the U.S., that hydrogen cyanide (HCN) is a predominant toxicant found in fire smoke. The resolution calls for educating the fire service about the dangers of smoke inhalation--including those of HCN--through support of a national education program, the development of HCN poisoning treatment protocols for all local and state emergency medical services (EMS), and efforts by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to establish a national database of smoke inhalation injuries, medical complications and deaths linked to HCN.

If you or someone you know suffers a burn injury or a smoke inhalation injury, you should call Kramer & Pollack LLP in Mineola, NY so that the personal injury attorneys in that firm can determine whether another party has legal liability for injuries suffered, and if the injured party has a solid legal case.

In Las Vegas in early October, a casino employee was lucky to have survived after suffering smoke inhalation after a fire started inside his restaurant's grease duct.

Firefighters quickly doused the fire a little before 9 a.m. on a Sunday at the Wynn Las Vegas Resort, and damage was confined to a small mechanical room. And the local fire chief credited the design of the duct system for containing the fire. The Wynn resort is about 10 years old, so it has a very modern design that helps with fire prevention so that a small fire cannot spread easily and become a large fire that threatens any more lives.

On the other hand, many older restaurants around the country are not designed in the same way. As a result, they have a much higher chance of being engulfed in a rapidly-spreading fire if their grease ducts and air ducts are not cleaned regularly. Restaurant managers have an obligation to make sure this cleaning happens enough so that there is only a small chance of a grease fire growing out of control.

Here's another lesson to be learned from this story: Restaurant patrons should always locate the fire exits in a restaurant before they sit down at a table. Even a few seconds can make a difference between life and death when evacuating from a fire, so know where to go if a fire does break out.

Fortunately, once the fire was discovered in the back of the Stratta restaurant at Wynn Resort, employees evacuated customers from their breakfast tables, and also from the adjacent casino areas, while firefighters vented smoke through a hotel skylight.

Things do not always turn out so well with kitchen fires, though. In Kansas City recently, a restaurant employee turned out to be not as lucky as the one in Las Vegas. Now, he has finally come home from the hospital to continue healing after he suffered severe burns that came from hot grease.

Gary Cifuentes, 22 years old, almost never complained while in the hospital for over a month, receiving painful treatments for burns that covered more than 50 percent of his body. Doctors released him from the burn center at the University of Kansas Hospital in early October. "The truth of it," he said about his survival, "is that it has been a miracle."

In late August, the restaurant worker was critically burned by a vat of grease that spilled on him when a car slammed into the side of the restaurant he worked at in Olathe, KS.

Cifuentes spoke to media through an interpreter Friday just before his release to stay with family in Kansas City, KS. He spoke from a wheelchair, his arms and hands in special wraps. There will be many more painful dressing changes and trips to the hospital, but doctors expect him to make a full recovery. "They tell me to keep working hard and keep moving forward," he says. He also thanked God for being alive, thanked medical staff and thanked family and friends, who almost never left his side in the hospital. Kansas workers' compensation is paying for his care, but it is unclear whether the fund will cover all of the costs.

Again, the lesson here is this: Kitchens are among the most common places for people to suffer severe burns and smoke inhalation. Therefore, everyone should think ahead of time and take precautions when in the kitchen, to avoid being injured.

In late September in the small town of Greenville, NC, a popular local restaurant owner died during a fire inside his house in the middle of the night. The man's two dogs also died in the fire. Unfortunately, it does not seem that this incident had to end up this way--smoke detectors just might have saved the man's life.

Derek Oliviero was just 27 years old--young enough to be able to run from the house and avoid severe burns if he had become aware of the fire. But he died of smoke inhalation when his home stared burning because a faulty electrical outlet in the kitchen malfunctioned while he was asleep. Firefighter found the man in the house around 3 a.m. but he was unresponsive. They tried to revive him, but their efforts failed.

Neighbors witnessed the incident. "It took a long time to get him out of the house. It was really scary," said one of them.

Here is another recent story that shows just how important smoke detectors are for saving lives when fire breaks out while people are asleep. In Fort Edward, NY, a family of four was able to escape without serious harm after their home caught fire early on a Sunday morning in early October.

Two members of the family suffered only minor smoke inhalation as they fled from the house at 12:30 a.m. The local fire chief said that two parents and two young children lived in the home, and that the father was awakened by a smoke detector. He then alerted the rest of the family after discovering a fire on the first floor.

The family climbed out a second-story window onto a porch roof, and then jumped from the roof to the ground as the fire quickly spread. "The smoke alarms saved their lives," the chief said. "When we got there, fire was coming out all of the windows."

The chief said the incident served as a good reminder for people to check their smoke detectors as the heating season begins. "They're alive because of the smoke alarms," he said.

Lastly, keep in mind that smoke detectors should be in more places than just the home. Here's an example why: In late September, eleven elementary-school-aged children suffered smoke inhalation on a school bus outside Boston.

Boston police said that a possible engine malfunction caused smoke to build inside the school bus. All were reported to have minor injury from the smoke inhalation, and they were transported to local hospitals as a precaution.

In such a case, there might be legal liability on the part of the owners of the bus because of the injuries suffered by the children. Smoke inhalation can happen very quickly, and is dangerous because of the poison gases contained in the smoke. Even 5 or 10 seconds of inhaling smoke might require hyperbaric oxygen therapy to force fresh oxygen into the lungs and save the patient from death.

If you or someone you know suffers a burn injury or smoke inhalation injury, you should call Kramer & Pollack LLP in Mineola, NY so that the personal injury attorneys in the firm can determine whether another party has legal liability for injuries suffered, and if you have a solid legal case.