in the recent lear crash there are 2 survivors that are in critical condition with burn injuries.
one of the men is heavily tattooed. i am figuring that tattoos will impact burn treatment ie skin grafts and scarring, but i’m curious on how.
my google fu is coming up with results of burns from laser removal of tattoos not fire damage to tattoos.
IANAD, but as a WAG, I’d say…
A first degree burn (similar to a sunburn) might result in surface peeling but will not affect a tattoo.
A second degree burn will cause blistering. If it’s extensive enough, or bad enough, there might scarring that will distort or mar the tattoo.
With a third degree burn the skin is burned full thickness - including the tattoo. The portion of a tattoo suffering this level of damage would be gone. I suppose, after skin grafting, you could get the tattoo “repaired” but grafted skin is different in texture than normal skin which may complicate things.
If someone has extensive tattoos it may be they have to “harvest” some of the inked but intact skin for grafts, and I have no idea how that would turn out.
A tattoo should not impact burn treatment in any significant way.
There may, of course, be a significant difference in the quality of protoplasm being grafted, and this could in theory make a difference in the outcome of burn treatment.
A well-publicized study concerning tattoo/dentition correlation is representative of the problem…
Would they even consider using the patients own tattooed skin for a graft? I’d think untattooed skin would be considered healthier for transplant, not having ink deposits in it and all.
Probably they would prefer uninked skin, but if the burn is extensive enough there may not be enough of it to be practical, in which case they would use the tattooed skin because there really isn’t an alternative in some cases.
No, but burns and their treatment might well impact the tattoo!
from the pictures on the news of the 2 men, the drummer doesn’t seem like he would have much skin not inked. reports from people first on the scene state that the 2 men’s clothing was on fire. i’m figuring on 2nd and 3rd degree burns for both men.
Latest report I read said more or less that - 2nd and 3rd degree burns on both - but both are also expected to recover. It helps they’re young and (presumably) healthy. Nonetheless, they’ll spend quite a bit of time in hospital and probably more in rehab afterwards.