Car crashes result in numerous injuries that have serious short and long-term repercussions. Though burn injuries are not among the most common, they are also not unusual.
How do burn injuries happen during crashes? What sort of severity can a driver or passenger expect if they end up dealing with these injuries?
The risk of fires in car crashes
Healthline takes a look at different burn injuries. First, burn injuries fall into three categories: first, second and third-degree burns. Burns in the first category are the mildest, while burns in the third are the most severe.
Second, how do burn injuries happen in car crashes? Simply put, there are a lot of flammable parts in a car and a lot of incidents that can cause these flammable parts to ignite. Fuel itself is highly flammable, and if it ends up leaking due to crash damage, a single spark or hot patch can cause a fire.
Explosions are less common, despite how often movies and the media use them in shows. The possibility still exists, but a person is more likely to suffer from burn damages due to slowly building fires or non-explosive fires.
Treating severe burns
The worst burn injuries often happen if a victim ends up trapped within a car or pinned under it with a fire happening. These victims often suffer from third-degree burns over many parts of their body, which requires immediate medical attention.
Failure to receive quick and proper medical care can result in many complications like infection, gangrene, amputation, sepsis and even death.