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KMID : 0853020160190010012
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Journal of Korean Burn Society
2016 Volume.19 No. 1 p.12 ~ p.15
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The Characteristics of Firefighter Burn Injuries in a Burn Center: A Retrospective Epidemio-logical Study
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Kim Hyeong-Tae
Kang Gu-Hyun
Jang Yong-Soo
Kim Won-Hee
Choi Hyun-Young
Kim Jae-Guk
Kim Min-Ji
You Ki-Cheol
Kim Do-Hern
Yim Hae-Jun
Band Sung-Hwan
Lee Chang-Seop
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Abstract
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Purpose: Firefighters are vulnerable to burn injury during firefighting. In extensive fires, conducted heat and radiant heat can cause burn injury even though firefighters are not di-rectly exposed to fire. There has been increasing interest in the health problems of firefighters considerably since Hongje-dong fire of 2001, which claimed the lives of six fireman. However, there have been no studies done on the characteristics of firefighter burn injuries in South Korea. Therefore, we investigated the characteristics of firefighter burn injuries in a burn center.
Methods: A retrospective, single-center research was per-formed between Jan 2006 to Dec 2015. 24 firefighters came to the burn center. The electronic medical records of patients were reviewed.
Results: Flame burns (87.5%) were the major cause of burn in firefighter. All the patients suffered second-degree or third-degree burns. Mean burn size was 6.1±6.7%. 22 of 24 patients were hospitalized and 2 of 22 hospitalized patients admitted to intensive care unit. Mean length of hospitalization was 29.1±23.7 days and mean length of intensive care unit hospitalization was 6.0±1.4 days. The face was the site most commonly burned, representing 25.8% of injuries. The hand/wrist, upper extremity, and neck were the next largest groups, with 19.4, 12.9, 11.3% of the injuries, respectively.
Conclusion: Firefighter burn injuries occur to predictable ana-tomic sites with common injury patterns. The burn size was small but, admitted patients need about 30 days of hospitalization.
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KEYWORD
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Burns, Korea, Firefighters
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