The largest organ of your body is your skin, which enables you to recognize hot and cold, including things that will cause damage. Minor burn injuries can produce a stinging and reddening of the skin that heals quickly with a little ointment. More catastrophic injuries end up affecting your tissue, muscles, and bone.
Your medical care might have to include skin grafts and plastic surgery. Through the pain and uncertainty, you may also be anxious about your finances and the instability that your situation is causing your family. Jan Dils, Attorneys at Law can help. When someone else’s careless or reckless behavior caused the accident in which you were injured, a West Virginia burn injury lawyer can work with you to seek compensation for your physical and emotional losses.
Most people associate burn injuries with fire but there are many other causes, including:
Often, the negligence of one person ends up causing the injuries of another person. This can happen when he or she mishandles chemicals on the job or causes an auto accident in which the other driver’s car explodes. An injured party should contact a West Virginia lawyer after suffering severe burns because of another party’s negligence.
Burn injuries are categorized by their degree of severity. First degree burns damage the outer layer of skin and are considered superficial. The skin reddens but does not scar and usually heals in a few days.
Second degree burns damage the first and second layers of skin: the epidermis and the dermis. These burns often blister and hurt. They can become infected but will heal with proper care.
Third degree burns penetrate both layers of skin and damage tissue below. They can darken to a charred color and are numb when touched. Skin grafting is often necessary to restore the area.
Some burns are even more severe, categorized as fourth degree. They can obliterate fat, muscle, and bone, and will often be fatal.
After receiving medical care, a person suffering from burns in West Virginia should contact a knowledgeable burn injury attorney to discuss what types of damages he or she could recover in a lawsuit.
If a person’s burn injuries result from an accident caused by someone else, his or her attorney can build a case for negligence by proving its four elements: duty, breach, causation, and injury. People have a duty to act responsibly to protect others, and if they fail to do so, and cause an accident with injuries, the injured parties likely have the grounds for a negligence-based cause of action.
A Personal Injury attorney will fight for the maximum compensation a persons need to heal from traumatic burn injuries. Prevailing in a negligence lawsuit means the plaintiff recovers money for their medical treatment and lost wages. However, non-economic damages, which are subjective losses, such as scarring and disfigurement, are capped in West Virginia. In catastrophic burn injury cases where the losses are substantial and permanent, non-economic damages are capped at $500,000, although that is twice the cap for all other Personal Injury cases.
Severe burns can have a major impact on your future and our legal team will represent your interests in a negligence-based lawsuit. We understand the physical and emotional trauma you are going through, and can advise on your next steps.
A West Virginia burn injury lawyer can identify the individuals or entities that caused your injuries, determine what you deserve in compensation, and press for every dollar available to you. Call Jan Dils, Attorneys at Law to discuss your case now.
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Jan Dils, Attorneys at Law
