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In Their Own Words: Someone Else's Experience With Burns







My Dad had a coal furnace. We were staying there, and it was cold in Pennsylvania. The furnace looked totally dead, and I thought "I have to build a fire, and I don't know how."

My brother had something there in a can, and I thought it must be what he kept there for starting the fire. The furnace LOOKED dead, but there were coals down there. When it hit those coals - whew! - it blew out on me. I had on a nylon housecoat, and it crinkled up like burnt plastic, and burned my arms.

I laid down. I was shaking, in shock. My kids talked to someone on the phone to get someone to take me to the doctor.

We put salve on the burns, but the doctor said we shouldn't have done that because it holds the heat in. He said we should have wrapped wet cold towels around it instead.* They scrubbed all that salve out.


- Pam, Pennsylvania

*Today experts say to run cool water over burns for a few minutes for an adult (a minute for a child), remove jewelry & clothing (or cut away what's not stuck) so it won't become tight after swelling, and wrap in a clean dry sheet or cloth.

Know stuff. Read.