Don't Get Burned This Way

On March 4, I did something I’ve done at least a thousand times. I heated my water for tea in the microwave.

But I fumbled taking the cup out, and splashed the scalding water on my stomach.

It hurt, but I didn’t scream.

Instead, I reached for ice. I pressed it against my belly, and sat down.

It didn’t look that bad; just like a sunburn. But the burn was the size of a large oven mitt, so a neighbor drove me to the nearest emergency room. I held onto the ice all the while.

I wound up two days later in the burn unit at Bridgeport Hospital, with blistering, second-degree burns that needed scrubbing, a painful process I hope to never experience again. I spent three days there.

This is an unfortunately common injury, caused by a common appliance and followed by a common mistake.

Most Are Scald Burns

The Connecticut Burn Center at Bridgeport Hospital, the only burn center in the state, treats 200 to 300 people as inpatients each year, and 800 to 1,000 on an outpatient basis. About 20 percent are from New London County.

At least half of all injuries it sees are scald burns, according to John Schulz, medical director of the burn center.

Nearly all the toddlers and young children the burn center treats are scalded, he said.

The advice he’d like repeated: “Keep toddlers out of the kitchen. Keep your children out of the kitchen.”

“Superheated” Water

Any hot liquid can burn, regardless of where it comes from. People often underestimate the temperature of water in a microwave, he said.

Microwaves heat unevenly and the physical process that allows boiling – nucleation - sometimes does not occur.  Water can become “superheated,” or heated to boiling temperature or higher, but not actually boil until the cup is moved and the water jostled.

 “All it takes is a little bit of turbulence, and then it flashes over into steam,” he said.

He added that people are sometimes unaware of how hot a cup in a microwave is.

“Suppose it’s not ready to turn into steam and it’s 200 degrees,” Schulz said. “And you reach in to pick it up and it’s hot and you drop it, and then it’s all over you.”

Ice Inflicts Damage

Cool water is best for burns. Ice makes them worse.

Just as extreme heat kills tissue, so does extreme cold, Schulz said. If you freeze a burn, you can compound the injury by adding frostbite, he said.

Burns Progress

After about an hour of holding onto ice, my skin looked like white, frozen, rubber.

Still, I felt I had this well in hand. I’d been to the hospital, had the drugs I needed, was slathered in medicine and bandaged.

A day passed. And my skin swelled, blistered and became unrecognizable.

How does this occur? Once a burn is over, it’s over. Not always.

Burns can progress. What appears manageable one day may not be tolerable the next.

Scald burns may take 24 to 36 hours to be fully apparent, Schulz said, depending on the depth of a burn. “It can take awhile for the extent of injury to declare itself,” he said.

Two weeks have now passed, and I’m healing. New skin has come in. It doesn’t look the same, but I’m grateful I wasn’t hurt worse. I also learned a painful lesson.

Though it takes a few extra minutes, I now heat my tea water on the stove, just to be safe.

And just to be sure, I know when it’s boiling.