Burn Awareness

Shriners Hospitals for Children® provides critical, surgical and rehabilitative care for varying degrees of pediatric burn injuries. Each state-of-the-art hospital is staffed and equipped to provide treatments for:

• Acute, recent burns
• Healed burns
• Scarring that has caused contractures or limited mobility
• Smoke inhalation
• Facial scarring or deformities
• Congenital hairy nevus
• Port wine stains and hemangiomas
• Complex skin conditions
• Congenital ear deformities

For emergency burn care, call 911

For patient referrals, please call your nearest Shriners Hospitals for Children which provides burn care: 

Boston: 617-726-3575
Cincinnati: 866-947-7840
Galveston: 409-770-6773
Northern California (Sacramento): 866-714-7123

Caring for the Whole Child

The staff at Shriners Hospitals for Children focuses on the medical and emotional needs of every child. A multidisciplinary team works closely with the patient and family to provide support during the child’s recovery and transition back to school and family life.

Innovative Burn Research

Shriners Hospitals for Children is committed to research and is regarded as a pioneer in developing major breakthroughs in burn medicine. Some of the advances made through these research efforts include:

• Improved survival rates for patients with severe burns and shorter hospital stays
• An understanding of the value of immediate wound closure
• Creation of pressure garments to minimize scarring
• Improvements in metabolic and nutritional care
• Development of engineered skin substitutes and better wound-healing techniques

About Shriners Hospitals for Children

Shriners Hospitals for Children is a health care system of 22 hospitals dedicated to improving the lives of children by providing pediatric specialty care, innovative research and outstanding teaching programs. Children up to age 18 with orthopaedic conditions, burns, spinal cord injuries, and cleft lip and palate are eligible for care and receive all services in a family-centered environment, regardless of the ability to pay.

Reckless use and improper storage of gasoline lead to thousands of young children and teens being burned every year. Shriners International and Shriners Hospitals for Children® are addressing these dangers as part of their Burn Awareness campaign.

Burn Awareness Week is a perfect time to take advantage of the complimentary burn prevention materials available from Shriners Hospitals for Children, including burn prevention activity books, posters and fact sheets.

Teens and Tweens

For parents and caregivers of teens and tweens, Shriners Hospitals for Children has created fact sheets and a video featuring the story of Austin Bailiff, a teen who sustained severe injuries after experimenting with fire and gasoline.

DVD: The Story of Austin Bailiff: This brief video emphasizes the dangers of playing with gasoline and targets a teen and tween audience. Austin Bailiff is a teen who was severely burned after experimenting with fire and gasoline. Bailiff has endured months of surgeries, skin grafts and therapy, and has missed out on playing football, wrestling and his 8th grade graduation. Warning: video contains images that might be disturbing to younger audiences. View the video on YouTube.

2013 Burn Awareness Campaign

Shriners Hospitals for Children® wants children and families to "Be Burn Aware," especially at home.

Burn prevention is a key endeavor of Shriners Hospitals for Children, which is why the health care system began its Burn Awareness campaigns more than 20 years ago. 

Safety Begins at Home

Consider these facts: 

• Every day, across the U.S., hundreds of children are taken to emergency rooms for treatment of scald burns caused by contact with hot liquids, steam or foods.
• Approximately 65 percent of children under age 4 hospitalized for burn injuries were scalded by hot liquids and 20 percent for contact burns.
• Among children ages 14 and under, hair curlers and curling irons, room heaters, ovens and ranges, irons, gasoline and fireworks are the most common causes of product-related thermal burn injuries.
• Since 1999, an average of 496 children ages 14 and under have died each year due to unintentional fire or burn-related injury.
• Nearly two-thirds of electrical burn injuries among children ages 12 and younger are associated with household electrical cords and extension cords. Wall outlets are associated with an additional 14 percent of these injuries.
• Children in homes without smoke alarms are at greater risk of fires and fire-related death and injury. 

Many of these injuries could have been easily prevented. The 2013 campaign, Be Burn Aware, emphasizes the importance of observing basic precautions to keep everyone – especially children – safe at home.

Meet Boots and Brewster, the Burn Awareness Pair

The campaign features two child-friendly characters, Boots and Brewster, a caped, cuddly bear and a googly-eyed teapot. In two new activity books for ages 3-7 and 8-12, the pair leads children through the various rooms of a house, pointing out dangers, and how to easily correct or avoid them. The booklets also have pages for families to map out a home fire escape plan.

Be Burn Aware Materials for Children and Families

Shriners Hospitals for Children offers a variety of complimentary burn prevention materials, including activity books, posters and fact sheets. To view these materials and place an order, see our materials order page. For more information, contact the public relations department at Shriners International Headquarters by sending an e-mail to shrinepr@shrinenet.org, or calling 813-281-8162.

Materials available for download:

Be Burn Aware: Keep Children Safe from Burn Injuries in the Home fact card (pdf)

Be Burn Aware: Keep Children Safe from Scalds fact card (pdf)

Every day, hundreds of young children with burn injuries are taken to emergency rooms. They were not even near a flame. The children are victims of scalds.

Clearly, this is a real danger. Scald burns (caused by hot liquids, steam or foods) are the most common burn injury among children age 4 and younger. According to Safe Kids USA, an average of 12 children ages 14 and under die from scald burn injuries each year. Children ages 4 and under account for nearly all of these deaths.

While the injuries and the numbers are distressing, even more disturbing is the fact that many of these burns could have been prevented. Shriners Hospitals for Children® and Shriners International are addressing scald injuries as part of their Burn Awareness campaign.

How Scalds Happen

Most scalds occur in residences. Scald burns are typically related to ordinary activities – bathing, cooking and eating – and often happen to children because of a lapse in adult supervision or a lack of protective measures. Youngsters may not understand or even be aware of potential dangers of hot liquids (especially water) and foods; they simply trust adults to keep them safe.

In addition, young children have thinner skin that burns more quickly than adults’. People of all ages can be burned in 30 seconds by a flowing liquid that is 130° F; at 140° F, it takes only 5 seconds; at 160° F, it only takes 1 second. For children under 5, these temperatures can cause a burn in half the time.

Quick Facts about Scald Injuries

• Every day, hundreds of young children with scald burns are taken to emergency rooms.
• Scalds or other contact burns are the cause of 90 percent of burn injuries to of children age 5 and younger.
• Children under 4 years of age and people with disabilities are at high risk of burn-related death and injury, especially scald and contact burns.
• Hot tap water accounts for nearly one in four of all scald burns among children and is associated with more deaths and hospitalizations than any other hot liquid.

(Source: Safe Kids USA)

Preventing Scalds

According to the Safe Kids USA, hot tap water burns most often occur in the bathroom and tend to be more severe and cover a larger portion of the body than other scald burns. Continuous supervision of young children is the most important factor in preventing tap-water scald burns, but there are additional simple preventive measures that can be taken, including:

• Lower the temperature settings on water heaters to 120° F (49° C) or less.
• When filling the bathtub, turn on cold water first. Mix in warmer water carefully.
• Check the water temperature by rapidly moving your hand through the water. If the water feels hot to an adult, it is too hot for a child.
• When placing a child in the tub face them away from faucets and as close to the othr end of the tub as possible.

  Scalds also occur in the kitchen and dining room. Many of these can be prevented by:
• Always supervise children in the kitchen and dining areas.
• Keep pot handles turned inward; use oven mitts or pot holders. Keep clothing from coming into contact with flames or heating elements.
• Keep children away from everything that is hot.
• Follow instructions and cautions for heating items in a microwave oven.
• Not using deep fryers with children present.

These suggestions may seem obvious, but given the statistics, they cannot be repeated too often. Burn Awareness Week is a perfect time to take advantage of the complimentary burn prevention materials available from Shriners Hospitals for Children. These include burn prevention posters, activity books and fact sheets.

To order any of these materials, please visit our online ordering system. We accept orders for delivery within the United States, Canada and Mexico only. Please allow up to 2 weeks for delivery. (* denotes that materials are available in English, French and Spanish)

Activity Book (ages 3-7)*	Activity Book (ages 8-12)*	Be Burn Aware Poster*	Fact Card for Burn Injuries
	Fact Card for Scald Awareness	Scald Awareness Poster