A serious workplace injury, like a burn, can derail your financial stability and potentially your career. Burns are one of the most painful, significant, and debilitating injuries a Missouri worker can suffer on the job, leaving behind scars and emotional trauma.
Understanding burn injuries and the most common causes of burn injuries at work can help you avoid disastrous workplace accidents, and protect yourself and your future.
Most Common Causes of Workplace Burn Injuries
The most common types of burns in the workplace are thermal, chemical, and electrical. Thermal burns are among the most common injuries people think of when they think of burns. These burns occur through direct contact with extreme heat, such as flames, steam, or super heated objects.
Chemical burns are also common in the workplace and can occur when an individual is exposed to commercial cleaning products, pool chemicals, solvents, acids, and industrial chemicals. When skin comes into contact with a chemical or corrosive substance, the substance can cause significant damage to sensitive soft tissues like skin and mucus membranes. Custodians, mechanics, construction workers, factory workers, agricultural workers, plumbers, laboratory technicians, and other professionals may risk suffering chemical burns.
Electrical burns are more common in the construction and other industrial professions. Electrical burns are caused by contact with an electrical current from exposed wiring, defective equipment, or power lines.
Some of the most common causes of workplace burn injuries stem from:
- Chemical exposure
- Faulty wiring
- Defective or unsafe equipment
- Explosions
- Fires
- Scalding liquids in restaurant and industrial settings
- Contact with a hot surface (stoves, irons, industrial equipment, heaters)
Radiation burns can also happen in the workplace from exposure to X-rays or other radioactive material. More rare than other types of workplace injuries, these burns can affect individuals in the medical profession and some industrial careers.
Types of Burns from Workplace Injuries
Burns are painful and physically destructive. They can result in soft tissue and nerve damage, scarring, loss of range of motion, and potentially infection and death. Burn injuries are categorized by the damage they cause to the skin and surrounding tissue.
1st-Degree Burn: First-degree burns are superficial and damage only the outer layer of the skin, called the epidermis.
- 2nd-degree Burn: Second-degree burns are more significant. Damage penetrates multiple layers of skin, capillaries, nerve endings, hair follicles, and sweat glands. Due to the trauma caused to nerve endings and other structures, soft tissue damage can be extensive and extremely painful. However, if nerve endings are burned, there may be no pain.
- 3rd-Degree Burn: Third-degree burns are the most severe and disfiguring. They damage multiple layers of skin and soft tissues, such as muscles, ligaments, and tendons. Damage can even reach the bones.
A St. Louis Workplace Injury Attorney Can Advocate for You
At Holland Injury Law, LLC, our aggressive work accident lawyers have worked hard to recover over $300 Million for 7,000+ clients. Our team is committed to our clients, and we’ll provide exceptional customer service and dedicated representation.
Contact our office to arrange a free initial consultation today.