If you are involved in a car accident that results in severe burns, the burn injuries themselves – manifested in skin and other tissue damage – are serious in themselves. But what can make a burn injury even more difficult to treat are the additional medical and psychological issues that frequently arise in connection with them.
Physical complications: among the additional physical consequences that you can experience resulting from a burn injury are increased susceptibility to infections, including most notably a bacterial infection known as sepsis which can become life-threatening; hypovolemia, or low blood volume; inability to maintain body temperature due to the loss of skin tissue; respiratory problems; joint and bone problems arising from damage to muscles and tendons; and scarring. All of these can require additional and frequently expensive medical treatment, which often must be provided by specialized doctors and burn treatment facilities.
Psychological complications: severe accident-related burn injuries often result in long-term lifestyle consequences, such as reduced mobility, loss of independence, emotional difficulty coping with the effects of long-term disabilities, and interference with both ordinary and intimate relationships. While these are not physical in nature, they are injuries nonetheless from a legal perspective and can be measured in money damages if someone else was at fault for causing the underlying burn injuries.
The cost of medical treatment alone for burns and other injuries caused by another negligent driver can be considerable, and may outstrip the ability of medical insurance to keep pace with the medical bills. When you factor in the indirect physical and mental consequences that can follow the injury itself, this problem can become even more daunting. Being able to recover compensation from an at-fault person can be essential to helping you to avoid financial ruin on top of the other pressing concerns that you will have to face, and are something that a personal injury law firm is well suited to help you with.
