Burn from hot shower

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Burn from hot shower

Post by silencertalk »

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,530056,00.html


Woman Scarred by Scalding Shower Awarded $750,000 in Settlement

Saturday, July 04, 2009

MOBILE, Ala. — A woman who suffered third-degree burns after stepping into a shower of 136-degree water has been awarded $750,000 in a settlement of a lawsuit against the apartment manager.

The Mobile County court award to 25-year-old Treon Moorer, in late June, followed mediation with JRS Management Inc. of Florida. The company's lawyer, Larry Matthews of Pensacola, declined comment.

Moorer's attorney, Richard Taylor, said the injury came at her Shadow Oaks apartment in Mobile on June 10, 2007. She had been born with a condition that causes frequent seizures, Taylor said, and suffered one as a result of the shock of the burning water.

He said Moorer was "horribly scarred" from the neck down. Taylor says the water heater industry and burn doctors recommend a setting of 120 degrees.
Last edited by silencertalk on Sat Jul 04, 2009 12:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by silencertalk »

Gee. I always test the temp before stepping in.

I would not have awarded her. I mean, yes - it should be set no more than 120 degrees. But there needs to be some responsibility on the part of the person taking the shower.

Also, I looked it up and it takes at least 6 seconds to get a burn at this temp. Why did she stay in the water for more than 6 seconds?
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Post by Omega_556 »

rsilvers wrote:She had been born with a condition that causes frequent seizures, Taylor said, and suffered one as a result of the shock of the burning water.
rsilvers wrote:Why did she stay in the water for more than 6 seconds?
Could they be claiming she had a seizure, causing a prolonged exposure, resulting in the burns?
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Post by silencertalk »

Or maybe she is too large to move quickly, and yet as never learned that means she needs to be extra careful about stepping into risky areas.
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Post by Hush »

rsilvers wrote:Gee. I always test the temp before stepping in.

I would not have awarded her. I mean, yes - it should be set no more than 120 degrees. But there needs to be some responsibility on the part of the person taking the shower.

Also, I looked it up and it takes at least 6 seconds to get a burn at this temp. Why did she stay in the water for more than 6 seconds?
Ditto. Its the most natural thing to do, putting your hand in the water to test it weather it be shower or bath.
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Post by smcharchan »

Get with the picture folks. Accepting responsability for your actions is so pre-election!

I'll bet she learned a lesson. The hard way, that is.

My wife takes rediculously hot showers. I can't even stand under the water when it is at her temp. Romantic showers together aren't that romantic b/c she's too cold and it feels like the flesh is melting off my body. She can also drink scalding hot drink coffee.
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Post by Paledaddy »

My god, this is one more of them LOL i sue u.

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Post by 66427vette »

stupid hurts.
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Post by silencertalk »

Next time I have my good thermometer I will measure the temp shower I like. I bet it is 105 to 110 degrees.
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Post by YugoRPK »

I have a gas powered tankless water heater. I can do 108 degree showers all day long. I don't like it much hotter than that.
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Post by silencertalk »

Seriously I cannot imagine stepping into a shower without touching the water with my hand first. And even if I did at home, I would never in an unfamiliar shower.
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Post by smcharchan »

http://www.darwinawards.com/

I don't understand how people do most of the asinine stuff that we do.

It is amazing that we have survived as a species.
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Post by 700PSS »

rsilvers wrote:Next time I have my good thermometer I will measure the temp shower I like. I bet it is 105 to 110 degrees.
You'd be surprised how much the temp drops from the water heater to the outlet. Maybe 10 degrees or more. Once, when our house and appliances were new, we didn't feel the dishwasher was cleaning well enough. While the GE service tech was out for some other things, we had him check out the dishwasher as well. He temped the hot water at the adjacent sink and said it was not hot enough for proper cleaning. I increased the setting on the water heater and everything’s been fine since.

I'm not one for scalding hot showers either. I don't consider it refreshing to steam up the place and sweat after I dry off because I'm so hot from a shower. My wife is the complete opposite.
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Post by MicroGuy »

I think the government promotes this. No personal responsibility. If they promoted this, it goes against EVERYTHING else they promote. welfare, food stamps, jobs programs, education etc....
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Post by nauss »

Everyone has done stupid stuff. I've been burnt in the shower because it is something you do thousands and thousands of times in a lifetime. You just get complacent. If the guy who runs the building jacks the thermosat to medium well he should be liable.

Most of these stories have more to them. Like the old lady who burned her crotch on McD's coffee. It wasn't the fact that it literally melted her genitals but rather that McD's had memos sent back and forth about how dangerous the coffee temp was but they sell more coffee the hotter it is. The ignored it and a lady lost her vagina.

My sis is a class-action attorney and big business is evil.

Now, back to the story. $750,000 is high but she was naked and the water probably melted her jublies off. So there.
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Post by smcharchan »

nauss wrote:Everyone has done stupid stuff. I've been burnt in the shower because it is something you do thousands and thousands of times in a lifetime. You just get complacent.
No.

I very rarely get complacent, and when I do I realize I'm doing so (perhaps by stepping into a hot shower) and quickly snap back into reality that it is dangerous world out there and we need to think about self preservation all the time.

By allowing her to put the blame on someone else and get paid for being an idiot we are only promoting the survival of the weakest. If I scald my nutsack I learn a lesson and don't ever do it again. Further, I warn others not to scald their nutsacks. Conversely, she is showing people that there is someone else to blame for her ignorance and that you can use our sheeple-coddling system to be rewarded for doing something dumb.

How many adults do you think jumped into a bathtub 200 years ago without first testing the water?

Before soap and antibiotics were a commonplace a small cut could result in death and people were much more careful. Have you seen someone handle a chainsaw lately? Most treat them as if they aren't even dangerous.

I'm not suggesting that people were smarter back then, rather that they better recognized that their actions could have negative consequences to their health.
MicroGuy wrote:I think the government promotes this. No personal responsibility. If they promoted this, it goes against EVERYTHING else they promote. welfare, food stamps, jobs programs, education etc....
Close, but that is not the real cause of the problem. We, as a species, are promoting this through our legal system, parenting, and over-zealous sympathy for stupid/lazy people. The government is just playing off what we'll accept to push growth. They see our sympathy and acceptance of the weak as an opportunity to grow and capitalize on it through the ever-expanding social programs that you mentioned.
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Post by Maser »

136 degrees?! Good God! Last time I checked the temp of one of my showers, it was not even 100 degrees. But yeah why on Earth would you not test the water first. Is common sense a thing of the past? It's things like this that make companies have to put stupid warning labels on everything that point out the obvious. Such as putting a warning on Hot Pockets that the filling will be hot. :roll:
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Post by silencertalk »

I just tested my water:

1. Comes out of tap a max 118 degrees.
2. The temp of how I set my shower is 96 degrees.


Here is what I think happened to her:

1. At her own house, she has the hot water heater set to a max of 100 degrees.

2. She is used to putting her own tap on max-hot and having a 100 degree shower.

3. She went to this place and set it for max temp, assuming it would be like home.

4. Got in without checking, did not notice steam.

5. Was too massive in size to quickly get out.

She did not mitigate damages. While it is true that most people would be burned by 136 degrees in over 6 seconds of exposure, it is not true that most people would be burned if the hot water was capable of coming out of the tap at 136 because they would set the water mixture first if it was hot to the touch.
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Post by silencertalk »

The McDonalds thing was because they served coffee at a temp in which it was not consumable. I feel this is different because the manager provided a setting by which the user could regulate temp.
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Post by chrismartin »

rsilvers wrote:The McDonalds thing was because they served coffee at a temp in which it was not consumable.
I also believe that it was company (or maybe just store) policy to do that. They found that they could reuse the coffee grounds if the water was super hot. One of my friends was studying to be a lawyer and had to research that case for one of her classes and I can remember her mentioning that aspect of the case that introduced a lot of their liability.

I think this is 100% the fault of the woman. I would not have awarded her anything. I feel bad that she was burned by the water, but not checking water temp (especially when not at home) is her fault alone. The lack of personal responsibility going around it astounding.

I was at a Gander Mountain sporting goods store a few weeks ago. I tested out a knife sharpener they had on display. I ran my pocket knife through it a few times. I rubbed the blade with my thumb to get some residue off and promptly cut my thumb. Freakin' stupid move. I guess I should have ran off and sued for making my knife too sharp! Oh well, I just kicked myself, grabbed a few towels from the bathroom and went on about my business.
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Post by evo45 »

Customaraily there is a nob in the shower that turns the water off, why didn't she turn the water off? What a dumb ass!
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Post by YugoRPK »

evo45 wrote:Customaraily there is a nob in the shower that turns the water off, why didn't she turn the water off? What a dumb ass!
She went into a seizure. Its in the article.
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Post by silencertalk »

She had a condition which gave her frequent seizures. When the water touched her, she could not turn it off.

Still, why did she step into it before testing it?
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Post by YugoRPK »

rsilvers wrote:She had a condition which gave her frequent seizures. When the water touched her, she could not turn it off.

Still, why did she step into it before testing it?
Did she turn the water up while in the shower or did she step into a preheated shower? I could see if she was in the shower and turned the heat up and got hit by extra hot water and went into a seizure and was unable to turn the water off.
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Post by Cortland »

I like my showers only very slightly colder than scalding and painful. I should be pink and red when I step out.

Also, I wonder if this was an apartment with central hot water or a water heater in each unit. The first thing I do when I move is usually crank up the water heater. I'd rather have it a little too hot than a little cold.
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