If you become involved in a fiery New Jersey car crash, it could result in your receiving catastrophic burns from which you may never fully recover.
As the American Burn Association explains, the problem with fiery car crashes is that you likely will receive four different types of burns as follows:
- Thermal burns when your body touches the fire’s flames or one of the exceedingly hot surfaces inside your vehicle
- Scald burns when your body touches one of your vehicle’s exceedingly hot liquids such as spilled coffee or gasoline
- Chemical burns when your body touches one of your vehicle’s caustic fluids such as steering fluid, antifreeze, transmission fluid, etc.
- Electrical burns when your body touches one of your vehicle’s live wires or comes into contact with a downed power line
Burn degrees
In addition to four distinct types of burns, you also risk receiving the following four different degrees of burns:
- Minor first-degree burns that scorch only your skin
- Deeper second-degree burns that may strip your skin off, but do not go any deeper
- Catastrophic third-degree burns that not only burn off your skin, but also invade its underneath tissues, including your nerves, muscles, tendons, etc.
- Life-threatening fourth-degree burns that go deep enough to damage your bones
Burn aftermaths
Unfortunately, most fiery car crashes result in highly damaging third- or fourth-degree burns. Not only will you likely spend a lengthy period of time in a hospital burn unit, you will also likely have to undergo extremely painful debridements and other therapies. In addition, virtually all third- and fourth-degree burns require several surgeries and skin grafts so as to reduce the amount of disfiguring scarring that burns virtually always produce.
This is general educational information and not intended to provide legal advice.