When a Louisiana resident suffers a serious burn, the injury kills the affected layers of skin. This not only can leave a person profoundly disfigured, but also is medically dangerous since it leaves the burn victim open to infections.
As a result, after a significant burn injury, skin graft surgery may be necessary. Skin grafting involves taking healthy skin from one part of the body and attaching, or grafting, it to an area where the skin has been damaged either because of a burn or on account of some other injury. The deeper the wound, the more tissue must be extracted from an area of the body with healthy skin.
Skin graft surgery can be quite painful, and it will usually involve anesthesia and a hospital stay of a few days. Moreover, even after a skin graft, the area around a burn will not look the same as would uninjured skin. In fact, after a skin graft, a person will have two wounds, the original area of the burn and the area from which the doctor extracted skin.
Moreover, like any medical procedure these days, a skin graft costs a lot of money. While, of course, one would hope that a victim has quality health insurance that would cover these expenses, many people may find that they will have to bear these expenses out of pocket. This is why it is so important to understand one’s rights.