What to Do if Your Child Gets a Burn Injury While at Daycare

While you may not be happy about it, you probably expect your child to come home from daycare with an occasional black and blue bruise, scratch, or cut. In fact, you might be surprised if they didn’t. These are bound to happen in the course of a busy day on the playground, out on a field trip, or even while doing an arts and craft project. And when you think back to your own childhood you have to admit you’d be surprised if he or she didn’t come home with the occasional boo-boo. But there are some injuries you have every right to be upset about — like a burn. Unfortunately, this happens more than you might expect. But before you act, try to calm down, so you can gather the facts of what, how, and why it happened. 

What type of burn?

Scalding

Hot liquids are a major source of burns, accounting for more than 500,000 incidents each year. As little as 10 seconds of exposure to liquids of 156 degrees or more can result in third-degree scalding burns, and as you know, the curiosity of young children makes them especially vulnerable to scalding. Tragically all too many of these incidents occur in daycare facilities where if only the staff were a bit more vigilant, they could have been prevented. 

Teachers and assistants often bring morning coffee and tea into the classroom and leave them within reach of exploring hands. Lunches often include soup or gravies which should a child knock it over and the contents splash on his bare skin can scald it. Likewise, should a hungry child take a mouthful, her tongue and mouth will be burned. This can also happen to an infant given a too-hot bottle. 

Although injuring your child was never intended, the adult responsible should have known better. It’s up to debate where hot coffee and tea should be brought into the classroom. And as for the soup or gravy, some staff member should have tested its temperature before setting it in front of a hungry child. In either case, your child’s burn can be considered a case of negligence.

Thermal Burns

Scalding can fall under the heading of a thermal burn. The difference is that scalding involves a hot liquid of some sort whereas a thermal burn is a result of the skin coming into contact with a hot surface or fire. Children in daycare centers in cool climates where heating is necessary can touch a hot radiator, or even worse trip and fall against one and get a nasty burn. Heaters of this sort should be in an enclosure or behind a grate of some sort, but unfortunately this is not always the case, especially in home-based daycare. Another source of thermal burns are hot stoves. Children should be kept out of the kitchen, but a daycare provider rushing to get a hot lunch on the table might not be keeping as vigilant watch as she should, and a child might wander in un-noticed.

Sun Burns

If your daycare provider includes outdoor play that’s to be commended since children benefit from fresh air and a chance to explore free play. But if she doesn’t keep an eye on the clock and the sun’s effect on your child’s delicate skin, he may come home with a painful sunburn. And though it may not seem as alarming as the serious burn injuries listed above, sunburns can have delayed results later in life resulting in melanoma, a serious sometimes fatal form of skin cancer.

Electrical Burns

An electrical burn is a thermal burn that occurs when electrical current passes through a part of the body and is turned into thermal energy. They can occur if a child touches a broken electrical cord or out of curiosity puts her finger in an electrical outlet. Although electrical burns are not common occurrences for children in daycare it doesn’t hurt to familiarize yourself with their appearance. The skin will be splotchy, swollen and red and blisters may form, and if you press gently on the burned area, it will turn white.     

Chemical Burns

Fortunately children in daycare do not suffer chemical burns as often as thermal ones because they can be even more devastating, sometimes causing permanent scars or disfigurement. Areas where bleach and other chemical cleaners are stored are usually strictly off-limits in almost every care facility but if your provider was negligent, your child may have wandered in and let curiosity get the best of her — to tragic results. If this has happened, you have a definite case of negligence. And if the provider did not notify you immediately or seek medical help, your grounds for a case are amplified.

Your Next Step: Seek Medical Help

Since you are no judge of how serious your child’s burn is, i.e., whether it is a first, second, third, or even fourth degree burn, your first step should be to seek a doctor’s opinion as soon as possible, In severe cases this may call for a trip to the Emergency Room. And if you take this route, you are far from alone. Burns in this country account for 300 children receiving emergency treatment every day. 

Hopefully your child’s injuries will not be serious but since they are likely to cause some sort of emotional trauma, you may want to take further action. One path you can take is to submit a claim with the daycare provider’s insurance carrier. Another would be to file a lawsuit. In either case, you must be able to prove that the provider or one of her employees was negligent.  To do this you must show that

• It was the duty of the daycare center or provider to see that your child came to no harm.
• The center or provider breached this duty
• This failure was the direct cause of the injury and would not have occurred had the provider been vigilant.
• The injury was foreseeable.
• Your child was indeed injured.

And while these may seem pretty straightforward, you should seek an attorney who is experienced in proving conscious indifference or gross negligence.