Burn Injury Resource Center

Published on: August 9, 2011

A Survivor of Severe Burns Beats the Odds and Gets Back to Living

A recent article in the San Francisco Chronicle offered up the amazing story of Derek Thomas, a 19-year-old athlete who for the past year has endured indescribable pain during the process of healing from third-degree burns so severe that he was given a 1 percent chance of survival by doctors.

But he has made it through the ordeal, and is working not only on getting stronger but also on becoming just another person with a normal daily routine, which is a blessing too many of us take for granted.

One day in August 2010, Derek sat in an SUV that was returning him home to San Diego from athletic training in the mountains. As he dozed off, the driver swerved the SUV, and it skidded across lanes of traffic, rolled over, and grinded along on its side. It then burst into flames.

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Published on: August 4, 2011

A Tragedy That Provides Important Lessons in Fire Safety

By Larry Kramer

In my August 2 post, I described recent incidents of fire at hotels and concert venues, and advised readers to think ahead of time about what to do in case a fire breaks out when you are in a hotel, arena, store, or anyplace else outside your home.

Well, if those stories didn’t convince you to think more about fire safety, hopefully this story will. In New Ulm, Minnesota, the Bohemian Bed and Breakfast had been a centerpiece of this small town since 1899. But on a night in early July, police and firefighters responded to a fire at 1:45 a.m. Unfortunately, within minutes the fire had engulfed the front of the house.

One man who lives in an apartment next to the inn said that when he smelled smoke early Saturday, he thought it was coming from a campfire. But then “I heard breaking glass, and then I saw a brighter light than the street light,” he said. When he looked out of his second-story window, he saw the front of the house engulfed.

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Published on: August 2, 2011

Recent Fires at Hotels and Concerts Prove That You Must Think About Fire Safety Ahead of Time

By Larry Kramer

Do you know how easy it is to risk your life in a public place? Well, if you don’t think about what you will do in case of fire when you are in a public place, then it is very easy to risk your life.

The stories below provide perfect examples of how close you can come to being killed by third-degree burns or smoke inhalation in just a few minutes.

On July 11, at least two people were transported to local hospitals for smoke inhalation following a four-alarm fire that struck a Days Inn hotel just outside Baltimore, MD. According to a Baltimore County Fire Department spokesperson, the fire was initially reported at 8:14 p.m. But guests who had been staying at the hotel say that fire alarms had gone off as much as an hour earlier–many people did not know there was a true emergency until they encountered heavy smoke filling the hallways.

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Published on: July 28, 2011

Do Your Children Know How to Avoid Severe Burns When Away from Home?

By Larry Kramer

In San Jose, CA in late June, a five-alarm fire roared through a college fraternity house. One student said he awoke around 3 a.m. to screams and chaos: “I heard people screaming that there was smoke in the house and to get out,” he said. “Everyone was screaming–we went to all the rooms, knocking on doors” before getting out of the house.

Another student had just bought new furniture in anticipation of spending his summer at the house. His room, along with others on the second floor of the house, was destroyed in the fire. In fact, the blaze displaced 28 people and caused an estimated $1.7 million in damage, but everyone who lived there did emerge safely because of the shouts and warnings from other occupants.

The American Red Cross was called to the scene to assist the 28 people who were displaced. San Jose State University set up a relief fund for the displaced students and those interested in donating to the fund can do so at www.sjsu.edu/advancement/giving.

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Published on: July 26, 2011

Everyday Activities Can Become Situations That Cause Severe Burns

By Larry Kramer

In early July in upstate New York, a 48-year-old Yates County man was seriously burned when a tractor-trailer caught fire while he was fueling it. The local newspaper reported that James Moore of Dundee was flown to the Kessler Burn and Trauma Center at Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester after the accident in the town of Benton. The hospital listed him in satisfactory condition hours after he was admitted, which was lucky for Moore.

Sheriff’s deputies say Moore was pumping fuel into the big truck when the passenger side he was standing on caught fire. Moore suffered severe burns to his head, face, neck, chest and arms. Firefighters from two departments quickly extinguished the fire.

While the cause of the fire was not immediately determined, this incident provides a memorable lesson for everyone: Some of the most routine things we must do each day can pose a fire hazard, or cause a second-degree or even a life-threatening third-degree burn. Here are just a few examples:

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Published on: July 22, 2011

Summer Grilling and Cookouts Can Result in Severe Burns

By Larry Kramer

On July 11, dozens of residents of Quincy, Massachusetts were driven out of their apartment complex and one firefighter was injured in a Saturday night fire that officials say was ignited by an illegal patio grill.

The fast-moving fire began at about 9:30 p.m. It quickly spread from the second-floor patio to the building’s third floor, which was completely destroyed by the flames. What’s more, the first and second floors suffered severe water and smoke damage.

The next morning, firefighters were still dousing embers at a building that once contained 12 apartments. None of the people living in this building at the Faxon Park Apartment Complex were injured, but all have been displaced. The Red Cross is assisting them with temporary shelter.

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Published on: July 19, 2011

Know Your Sunscreen and Sunblock Products to Avoid Burns

By Larry Kramer

Sunscreens are chemicals that are designed to be absorbed by the skin in order to form a sun barrier so you do not get first-degree or even second-degree burns (blisters). Many of the chemicals have been broken down into tiny particles so that they can be sprayed or absorbed more easily. There is clear evidence that they prevent sunburn, but there is very little known about the safety of these chemicals and their effectiveness in reducing skin cancer from sun exposure. There are also studies whose statistical evidence shows that in some cases these chemicals may actually increase your risk of cancer. There are three primary concerns with the chemicals in sunscreen:

1) They are free-radical generators which breakdown the DNA in cells and potentially make them more prone to cancer.

2) They often have strong estrogenic effects, meaning the chemicals could actually interfere with normal sexual development.

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Published on: July 14, 2011

Learn About Skin Protection to Avoid Sunburns This Summer

By Larry Kramer

A recent article from the Associated Press addressed exactly the type of information we want to provide to you each week in this blog. Here is a summary:

About a third of adults get sunburns each year, and most of those people actually get more than one, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s a bigger problem than pain, because sunburns are believed to increase risk of the most serious type of skin cancer, melanoma. There aren’t good figures on how often children get sunburned, but their tender skin can burn especially easily.

While water and sand reflect ultraviolet (UV) rays and make sunburns worse, it’s not just the beachgoer who’s at risk. A sunburn can hit anyone–from kids playing ball to their parents watching, to the person who does gardening in the backyard.

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Published on: July 12, 2011

Even After July 4th, Fireworks Are Around and Can Cause Severe Burns

By Larry Kramer

Last week in a town in Indiana, a mother took her small children to a local shopping mall parking lot to watch a few different individuals set off fireworks. This was not an approved event by the shopping mall owner or the local authorities, but we all know that such things happen all the time in towns across the country, and many of us go to watch these events even though they are neither professionally run nor legally allowed.

The problem is, these non-professionals who are setting off fireworks almost never take the proper precautions to ensure that spectators do not get burned. So when one of the people setting off fireworks in that Indiana town last week accidentally kicked over a mortar while he lit the fuse, all he could do was watch as the rocket took off sideways and right into a crowd of spectators.

The result was first-degree burns on the shoulders, neck, and head for one 3-year-old girl. The mother explained that her daughter, along with four of the toddler’s cousins, were sitting on two blankets in the parking lot, along with many other people watching both the legal fireworks being launched at the nearby La Porte County Fairgrounds and the illegal ones being lit in the parking lot.

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Published on: July 7, 2011

Kitchen Fires Are Too Common, and Very Dangerous

By Larry Kramer

In my blog post of July 5, I wrote about a restaurant fire that was caused by careless preparation by a waiter of a dessert that uses fire for visual effect. The result was two burned patrons, with one of them suffering serious third-degree burns.

But even at home, many tasks involved in cooking can be very dangerous, and you must pay attention to safety whenever you are using heat in the kitchen. Consider this: Back in late May, a man in Granby, NY, was seriously burned when he tossed meat into a hot pan. The local fire chief said that the man simply made an absent-minded decision to toss the meat into the pan from a foot or so away, and this caused a flare-up of flames that engulfed him. The man was rushed to Upstate University Hospital in Syracuse with second- and third-degree burns to his face, hands, arms and back.

Then in mid-June, a Las Vegas woman was treated for smoke inhalation and a firefighter suffered a minor injury during a kitchen fire that caused $75,000 in damage. Firefighters responded to a townhouse complex to fight this fire, which started after the woman put a pan of cooking oil on the stove top to heat up, but then got distracted by a phone call.

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