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Houston Burn Injury Lawyer
Were you seriously burned in a fire due to someone else’s negligence? Dedicated Houston burn injury lawyer Hector Longoria will fight for your just compensation. For legal representation you can count on, call our Houston office for a free consultation.
Houston’s temperatures may soar into the 100s every summer, but sun stroke is not the only health threat to come from excessive heat. Every hour, somewhere in the United States, three people are injured in fires. Burn injuries account for more than one million hospital and doctor visits each year, and of those who suffer from these injuries, the Center for Disease Control reports that 4500 people die.
While heat-related burns are the most common form of the injury, factors such as electricity, chemicals, and even radiation can result in significant burns. There are three distinct degrees of burns, and though they differ in severity and extent, they all require urgent medical attention. Burn injuries can heal over time, but the psychological effects may linger for far longer, and because mental trauma is less visible, it can be harder to treat. Many burns occur as simple accidents, but if these injuries arise as the result of another person’s doing or an organization’s negligence, you can have legal recourse.
The choice to move forward with a personal injury lawsuit is yours and yours alone to make. If you have concerns about whether your case may be valid, read on to learn more about the nature of burns and contact Hector Longoria, experienced Houston burn injury lawyer for further guidance.
How Can Burn Injuries Happen?
Burn injuries fall into seven main categories: chemical, contact, electrical, flame, flash, radiation, and scald. Of these, only contact burns, flame burns, flash burns, and scalds, also known collectively as thermal burns, stem from exposure to a high temperature.
- Thermal burns can occur when a person touches hot plastic or metal, when clothes catch on fire, when gasoline ignites and explodes, or when hot beverages spill on exposed skin.
- Chemical burns are unrelated to heat, and these injuries result instead when a person comes in contact with an alkaline substance, such as bleach, or a strong acid.
- Electrical burns can affect internal organs, as an electrical current can run through a person’s body and cause major damage from head to toe.
- Radiation burns, also called radiological burns, can result from extended exposure to ultraviolet light, X-rays, and similar forms of radioactive sources.
What Can I Do to Treat a Burn Injury?
With proper medical attention, the survival rate among people who suffer from burns is almost 97 percent, and the American Burn Association highly recommends that anyone injured seek help from a doctor or a hospital as soon as possible. Though seeking medical attention is the highest priority after an injury, it is also important to recognize the signs and symptoms.
If your skin is red and painful to the touch, it is likely that you have developed first-degree burns. This degree of burn is limited to the outermost layer of skin, and as such, these burns can usually heal within a few days after the injury. First-degree burns that cover much of the body warrant attention from a doctor, but burns that are smaller in size can benefit from home remedies involving cool compresses and sterile bandages. Sunburn is a common and easily recognizable first-degree radiation burn, and though Texas is one of the states with the lowest risk of skin cancer, Houston’s residents should keep the sunscreen handy.
Second-degree burns require medical attention, and unlike first-degree burns, these burns should not be treated by anyone other than health professionals. This type of burn can manifest as blisters or deep red skin, and there may be severe pain and even some skin loss. Third- and fourth-degree burns may be painless, but sustaining either type of burn can result in permanent disfigurement. Only care from an emergency medical technician or doctor will prevent further complications.
How Does Texas State Law Fit in with Burn Injury Lawsuits?
Countless personal injury cases in the United States have negligence as their basis, and Texas is no exception. Though the exact definition of negligence varies slightly from state to state, all courts in the Greater Houston metropolitan area follow the same standards. According to the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code, one of the 31 fundamental statutes that constitute Texas state law, negligence is a general dereliction of duty to protect other people from harm. Despite the simplicity of the definition, negligence is applicable to a wealth of situations. If the circumstances that led to your burn injury match any of the details below, you may have the grounds for a personal injury lawsuit.
Plaintiffs and their attorneys, under Texas state law, have to prove that the plaintiffs were injured as a direct result of another party’s failure to obey common-sense safety standards. The attorney must show that this failure was a breach of that party’s responsibility to adhere to those standards, and any negligence on the part of all plaintiffs cannot account for more than 50 percent of the responsibility for the injury.
If an office worker is momentarily distracted, and if this distraction prevented the worker from noticing damage to an electrical outlet right before plugging in a cord, it is possible that the majority of the responsibility will lie with the employer or with the building’s maintenance team for failing to fix the outlet in time. If, on the other hand, the office worker damaged the outlet, the outlet was not immediately fixed, and the worker was injured a few days later when trying to plug in a cord, the 50 percent or more of the responsibility may not lie with the office’s maintenance team. The percentage of negligence is key, as injured parties cannot receive compensation if the judge rules that they were mostly responsible for their burns.
No one should have to suffer from serious burns, and a burn that happened as the result of someone else’s negligence merely adds insult to injury. The guidance of a Houston burn injury lawyer can be instrumental in helping you to receive compensation following your trauma. Experienced Houston burn injury lawyer Hector Longoria has years of experience helping clients throughout Texas seek the justice that they deserve. If you are actively seeking attorney representation or merely want a consultation, contact our law firm today for support in your case. Start protecting your rights now.
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