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Interviewer: Are you a new parent? Well, here are three burn dangers you need to watch out for. We'll examine that next on The Scope.

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Interviewer: When you bring a brand new baby home, there are a lot of things that you've got to make sure that your house is safe for them. One of the things you have to start thinking about is potential burn dangers, and we're going to talk about three things you should do . . . three burn dangers you should watch out for when you bring that new child home or you have a new child in the house. Annette Matherly is with the University of Utah Burn Center. Let's cover these three things: number one . . .

Annette: Number one would absolutely be that beautiful glass fronted gas fireplace, which is quite a mouthful for me to say, but that fire is really attractive to young children and that glass stays hot for at least an hour after it's turned off. So it's not just when the fire is on that it's hot. It's when it's off and it looks safe that it remains hot enough to burn a child in about a second.

Interviewer: And I think that's really surprising when people find that out because they think that that glass is like the glass in your oven, right? The oven could be at 450 degrees. You could touch that glass. You're fine. The glass fronted fireplace, not that kind of glass.

Annette: Absolutely not, which is strange because it's about 1,300 degrees when it's hot, which is crazy to think about. And so, now, there's legislation moving forward to ensure that everybody puts a guard around that glass fronted fireplace, but that doesn't protect you if you go to a vacation spot or a hotel or a restaurant that doesn't have that guard around or it doesn't protect you if you've had your glass fronted gas fireplace in for a while and you're not aware of the danger surrounding that.

Interviewer: All right. So, remember, that glass front fireplace, it's pretty, it's like a magnet that kids' hands would love to go up there and it stays hot for a long time. So be aware of that. That's number one. If you're a new parent, you've got three burn dangers to watch out for: number two . . .

Annette: Number two would be hot liquids burn like fire, which seems counterintuitive because we think fire burns like fire. We don't think of something in a cup burning like fire, but to know that hot water right from your water heater is set at about 146 if you haven't turned it down. And so a suggestion to new parents, especially because that child has much thinner skin than an adult, would be to turn that water heater down to 120. You can measure that by putting a candy thermometer in the first water that comes out of your tap and then it's usually a low, medium setting.

Interviewer: So the default settings for hot water heaters is 146.

Annette: 146.

Interviewer: And how long does that take to burn a child?

Annette: Two seconds for a significant injury to occur.

Interviewer: And 120 is a little safer or a lot safer?

Annette: Absolutely. So it doesn't mean that you won't get burn injured, but what it means is that there's some more time. There's minutes as opposed to seconds.

Interviewer: And what about hot liquids like in your cup there that was hot, cups of coffee and stuff?

Annette: If you think about your Starbucks, or whatever it is, your beverage of choice, when a barista pours it, it's around 180, which is crazy if you think 146 is water that comes from your tap and burns you in two seconds. So 180 is outrageously high and much faster than that two second incident. So never carry your young child whilst carrying a hot beverage and ensure that your beverage stays away from countertops and tables, that tablecloths aren't used so young children can't pull on that tablecloth and pull that beverage down onto themselves.

Interviewer: And maybe go out and buy some mugs like your fancy one three with that airtight seal on it.

Annette: Absolutely. My beautiful silver one, so, you know, if you've got a young child then we usually say, "got a kid, get a lid."

Interviewer: Okay. Very good. All right. So glass front fireplaces, hot liquids burn like fire, what's the third thing that new parents should watch out for as far as burn dangers are concerned?

Annette: So we talk about a three-foot safety zone around a lot of things. So around a campfire would be another thing, but also around your cooking area. So, if you have a small child, I know it's not always possible to put a physical three-foot marker with duct tape on the floor. Most people don't want that in their beautiful kitchens.

Interviewer: You could.

Annette: You absolutely could, but to think visually where that marker would be, especially when you have little children roaming around or a brand new infant because that also includes cooking with a child in your arms. So to be aware of what you are holding in that precious bundle and is it worth the risk.

Interviewer: And other than the stove, a lot of people don't really realize the microwave, stuff that comes out of there can be dangerous, ramen noodles, boiling water.

Annette: Absolutely. So ramen noodles are the number one for teens because teens come home from school. They go and they put something hot in the microwave, and oftentimes, again, like you said, it's above head level, and so they're reaching to pull something down and they'll pull it right down on their face.

Interviewer: Yeah. And if you have a child in your arm and you reach up with one hand, you fumble that item. It doesn't take long.

Annette: Absolutely.

Interviewer: All right. So those are the three really good things to watch out for if you're a new parent because a lot of burn prevention is just awareness and implementing some of these changes in your household. Do you have any other final advice for that new parent coming home with that new child to keep them more burn safe?

Annette: So the last thing would be burn prevention is a team sport. We work as a team to ensure that each other is kept safe so when you bring home your new child then to talk to others that are maybe not familiar with the dangers that you've just heard about. So maybe grandparents, maybe babysitters would be another really important one as you go out on a date with your partner and leave your child in the care of another. And so, to ensure that they're aware of the things that could really cause lifelong injury to a small child would be really important to mention before you leave.

Interviewer: And having these conversations really can make a difference.

Annette: Absolutely. Most burns are preventable. It is very, very infrequently that we see somebody come through our unit that it could not have been prevented. So, to know and to educate yourself about the dangers of fire and then to educate those around you would be really important.

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Interviewer: If you have a glass-fronted gas fireplace and a toddler or young child, what you're about to hear could save them a lifetime of pain and disability. That's coming up next on The Scope.

Announcer: Health information from experts supported by research. From University of Utah Health, this is thescoperadio.com.

Interviewer: Glass-fronted gas fireplaces are responsible for a lot of preventable burn injuries to toddlers and young children each year. And these burn injuries often require painful wound care and rehabilitation. The end result can be scarring that interferes with normal function, as well as psychological after effects that will be with them for the rest of their life.

Jordan Green's son was badly burned by a glass-front gas fireplace a few years ago, and he wanted to tell his story in hopes that it prevents another child from going through the same thing and, hopefully, you as a parent as well. So several years ago, your child was burned by a glass-front gas fireplace. What happened?

Jordan: We just moved back to Utah. We built a home and it was finished right before Thanksgiving. I was actually at work. My wife woke up one morning. It was cold outside. It might have been snowing. And she had the fireplace on, and the kid was playing on the floor with his toys, our son. And she just heard a loud, loud scream and ran to him. And he was . . . obviously, he had touched the glass on the fireplace.

I got a phone call. My wife was in a complete panic and she said Maddox had burned his hand and was going on and on and freaking out. And I said, "Get him to an urgent care." So she rushed him to urgent care as fast as possible and we kind of went from there.

Interviewer: Yeah, and ended up in the burn center because those fireplaces burn at 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit.

Jordan: We just weren't aware. We just weren't aware.

Interviewer: Yeah. Do you have any idea how long his hand was in contact? Because what makes these burns worse is not only the temperature but these glass-fronted gas fireplaces, sometimes, they're so hot, it starts to melt the skin. And the child, not only doesn't realize that they're getting burned, but they can't get their hand off there.

Jordan: We don't know. My wife was, I think, doing dishes or something, but it was only maybe a couple of seconds. I mean, it was so fast. You look, it only takes one second. Your hand in there for one second . . .

Interviewer: That's all it takes, one second.

Jordan: Yeah, for it to burn like that.

Interviewer: And you have a picture and that was right after he got his hand burnt. And if you've ever burnt yourself before, you know how you get that white blister.

Jordan: Yeah.

Interviewer: His whole hand is practically like that.

Jordan: Well, and what you don't see, yeah, his whole hand is like that. But what you don't see is it's deep. It was burned so deep into his skin. I mean, well, what really hurt and was tough was all the treatments. You know, peeling back the skin, cleaning it, all the different treatments we had to do. I mean, it lasted almost two years, the process. It was crazy.

Interviewer: Two years?

Jordan: Yeah.

Interviewer: You had mentioned that coming up here for this interview that, you said, yeah, you know your way around pretty well because of all the times you had to come back. What did that process look like after the burn and then over that two-year period?

Jordan: It's crazy because your kid's so little and they're so precious and, I mean, he was not even a year old when it happened but it's like never-ending. I mean, it's two years of coming here. At first, we had to peel the dead skin away, clean it, and he would freak out. It was like the accident was happening over and over again every time we came. And that's how it was for the first several months, several treatments, is they're cleaning it out, painful for him. It's painful for his parents. We have to hold him down while they're cleaning it out. Yeah, it's an experience that you do not wish on your worst enemy, let alone your child.

Interviewer: So not only is it really painful when it happens, not only is the treatment excruciatingly painful, but the damage could last a lifetime. Yeah, I mean, to the extent that you will lose full mobility or usefulness of your hand.

Jordan: One of the scary things is . . . it may sound naÔve but you don't want your kid to grow up that has a dysfunctional hand or anything. You want him to grow up and be able to play baseball and throw a baseball and do all those normal things that we all grew up doing. And that was . . . another thing is we didn't know when we were out of the clear. Well, it could get infected. Well, we might have to go back in and they talked about if the scarring was severe enough that they would have to re-cut open the scars and relieve some of that intention.

And so for two years of all these check-ups, we never knew we're out in the clear. We still have to look and make sure that his function in his hand is properly working and things like that. And luckily, it's been great. We came up to the burn clinic and they did an amazing job.

Interviewer: But in your son's case, he's got full mobility of it, from what you've told me.

Jordan: He's got full mobility. He's got little scarring. And I know you saw the picture, it's hard to believe that that entire white deep-scarred palm, you know, you can see it now at 22 months, is barely recognized. I mean, you can barely see that anything happened to it. It looks really, really good. I mean, they . . .

Interviewer: Yeah. So what have you learned about preventing this type of injury since you've went to this experience? You said that you had no idea going in. The people you know have no idea. What have you learned since then?

Jordan: Well, I think it's awareness. I mean, if there's something as simple as a sticker on our glass of our fireplace just to say, "Hey, this gets to this temperature." We were just naÔve and unaware about it. And we're not the only ones because you were just saying every year, these little kids go to the University of Utah Burn Clinic for the same thing. I mean, it goes . . . it's a cycle.

Interviewer: Do you still use that fireplace?

Jordan: We still do use it.

Interviewer: How do you use it safely now?

Jordan: We put an iron guard around it that we fastened onto it. It's very sturdy and durable. Things are changing, obviously. The industry noticed that there was a problem and started making the adjustments, but you still see them. There are still all these homes built. And so we talked about it, but I just think awareness, specifically for that, would have saved us two years of heartache, but just drawing awareness and talking to people about it. Yeah.

Interviewer: Jordan, thank you very much for telling your story. I hope that maybe it prevents a few of these from happening because, unfortunately, sometimes people have to experience these things for other people to go, "Ha, this is a real threat. This is a real deal."

Jordan: Yeah, absolutely. And that's the thing is it was a lot of heartache for us, but, hopefully, we can prevent people from going through what we've been through.

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updated: January 15, 2019
originally published: December 14, 2016

Interviewer: Medical news and research from the University of Utah physicians and specialists you can use for a happier and healthier life. You're listening to The Scope. There's nothing better in the wintertime than gathering around a warm fireplace with the family, but it can be dangerous, and maybe in ways you haven't considered. We're talking with Brad Wiggins, Nurse Manager of Community Outreach of the University of Utah Healthcare Burn Center. So fireplaces and glass fireplaces is what you said you wanted to talk about. What's the difference between a regular, old school and a glass fireplace, and what's the concern?

Brad Wiggins: Sure. Well, they both have significant dangers for risk of burn injury. But particularly, this time of year here in Utah and throughout the Intermountain West, we really see a very high percentage of children, particularly toddlers, that do not understand the safety risks of how hot the glass gets. Parents leave a small child in a room where the fire's going, and I don't think, really, there's been a lot of emphasis on education to help people to understand the dangers of those risks and how detrimental it can be.

Interviewer: I'd imagine a lot of parents say, 'That's fire. That's bad.' But they never say, 'That's glass. That's hot.'

Brad Wiggins: Absolutely. I think that those are the risks of parenthood; the safety moments where you think everything's fine, and you find yourself trapped in one of those moments where, all of a sudden, it comes back to get you. I think that, really, the emphasis here is about education, teaching people, and getting the word out about those safety risks. Right now, particularly in an environment here where we have this incredibly difficult inversion, people do use a lot more natural gas fireplaces. They have a lot more glass, and the glass is getting bigger. People are choosing larger, more beautiful types of fireplaces. And they are beautiful, but they come with a very inherent risk.

Interviewer: How hot does that glass get?

Brad Wiggins: Greater than 350 degrees, actually.

Interviewer: You're kidding.

Brad Wiggins: No. It will actually give you a third degree burn in less than one second. And one of the biggest complications we see if it's toddlers who are pushing around the room and pushing off the furniture, they get to the glass, and they put both hands on, and they lean in with their weight. It's so hot that they actually end up sticking to the glass and they can't pull themselves off. It gives you a third degree burn to the entire palm or surface of your hand. So not only are you dealing with a burn, but you're dealing with a third degree burn that must be skin grafted, and it will impact the movement and the functionality of that hand for the rest of that child's life.

Interviewer: Is a child's skin more easily burned than an adult's? I mean, at 350 degrees, I don't know if it's really . . .

Brad Wiggins: Absolutely. But if you think about an adult's hand, they have callous all over it. They have a little bit more reaction time where they know they're touching something hot, and they pull off. So a toddler doesn't understand the instinct that once they touch something hot they should pull off. The reaction is different. They feel something hot. They feel the pain. They start screaming. They're looking around for someone to help them, and they don't remove their hands from the glass. They actually stay attached for a longer period of time, and it sounds absolutely horrible, it's incredibly difficult to recover from, and it really leads itself to a lot of long-term complications throughout life.

Interviewer: And I'd imagine also not just the physical pain, but there's some mental thing. I bet you'd never forget that.

Brad Wiggins: I'm sure that you won't. From a parent perspective, I think you deal with a lot of people who are not forgiving themselves for allowing that to happen in their home. Again, it's an accident just, like, if you get in a car accident. Things happen.

Interviewer: What about prevention other than trying to tell the child, 'Be careful,' which might be lost on the child? So what else do you recommend?

Brad Wiggins: The number one thing that you can do if you have a small child is don't use your glass fireplace. If you're going to be sitting in the room with your small child toddling around, don't turn the fireplace on. The second thing would be definitely get a screen in place. There's lots of different types of opportunities and different manufactures out there for you to find that actually have types of coverings that keep your child from actually getting to the glass fireplace.

Interviewer: Any final thoughts?

Brad Wiggins: If you walk into the room, the fireplace is on and you go to turn it off, it doesn't immediately cool the glass. It's actually been recorded that it takes almost 25 minutes for that glass to actually cool in that room to a safe, touchable thing. The other issue is that most of them are actually hot right now. Your pilot light's in there running. Whether you're at work or home or wherever you are, it might not be on, but it still actually has quite a bit of heat. You'll be surprised. So feel it and get an idea of what exactly what you're dealing with. Protect yourself. Put those screens around it. Turn them off. Teach your kids not to teach that area if possible. But still, at a toddler age, they just don't know. Again, don't use it. Put a screen around it if you have to use it for some reason and that's your main heating source for your home in the wintertime. Protect your young ones. Protect your families. Really pay attention to those safety needs of each of those children.

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