Your Rights After A Chemical Burn In An Industrial Setting

If you work around chemicals, you already know the risks. Acids. Caustic cleaners. Solvents that can eat through skin in seconds. These substances are part of daily life in factories, warehouses, and processing plants across the state.

At Ausman Law Firm P.C., L.L.O., we’ve sat across from workers whose lives changed in an instant because of chemical exposure. These aren’t straightforward cases. You’re dealing with workers’ compensation, sure, but often there’s more to it than that. Sometimes third parties are involved. Sometimes employers violated safety rules they knew about. Understanding what rights you have after a chemical burn can mean the difference between getting the support you need and drowning in medical bills.

How Chemical Burns Actually Happen

Chemical burns work differently from the burns most people think about. With heat or fire, you pull away, and the burning stops. With chemicals, the damage keeps happening until someone neutralizes the substance or washes it off completely. That’s what makes them so dangerous.

How bad it gets depends on what you were exposed to, how concentrated it was, how long it stayed on your skin, and where on your body it hit. We’ve seen burns from sulfuric acid, sodium hydroxide, hydrochloric acid, ammonia, and industrial cleaners that most people have never heard of.

Equipment fails and sprays chemicals where they shouldn’t go. Storage containers leak because someone didn’t maintain them properly. Workers get handed protective equipment that doesn’t actually protect anything. Two chemicals that should never mix end up in the same space. Emergency eyewash stations that are supposed to be there aren’t, or they haven’t been checked in months. Sometimes the injury is obvious right away. Your skin starts blistering, and you know something’s terribly wrong.

But other chemicals are sneaky. They penetrate deep before you even feel it. That’s why you need medical attention immediately, even if you think you’re fine. By the time symptoms show up, serious damage may have already happened.

What The Law Says About Your Rights

Nebraska has workers’ compensation for a reason. If you get hurt on the job, you’re supposed to get benefits. Medical treatment. Rehab if you need it. Partial wage replacement while you recover. And it doesn’t matter whose fault it was. But workers’ comp has limits. Sometimes serious limits, especially with injuries as severe as chemical burns that leave permanent scars or disabilities.

The Nebraska Workers’ Compensation Court handles these claims, and they’ve got a process you need to follow. Report the injury to your employer right away. File your paperwork on time. Miss those deadlines and you could lose everything, which is why talking to an Omaha Burn Injury Lawyer early matters.

And this is important: workers’ comp might not be your only option. If defective equipment caused the chemical release, that’s the manufacturer’s problem, not just your employer’s. If a contractor doing maintenance work created the hazard, they’re liable. If the product itself was dangerous and didn’t have proper warnings, you can go after the company that made it.

Those are called third-party claims, and they open up compensation that workers’ comp simply won’t cover.

When Other Parties Are Responsible

Workers’ compensation covers your employer’s liability. Period. But chemical burn cases often involve other companies, other products, other people who screwed up.

Chemical manufacturers who sold dangerous products without adequate warnings. Equipment makers whose faulty machinery led to the spill. Property owners who knew about hazardous conditions and did nothing. Subcontractors whose negligence put you in harm’s way.

Third-party claims let you recover damages for pain and suffering. Full wage loss, not just partial. Everything workers’ comp leaves on the table.

But you’ve got to prove what happened and who’s responsible. We bring in safety consultants who know industrial environments inside and out. Medical experts who can explain exactly what chemical exposure does to human tissue. People who can document not just that you were hurt, but how it happened and who failed to prevent it.

The Real Cost Of Chemical Burns

Treatment for chemical burns isn’t simple. You need decontamination first. Then debridement, which means removing dead tissue. Severe burns require skin grafts. Some people need reconstructive surgery, sometimes multiple procedures over the years.

Permanent scarring is common. Limited mobility in the affected area. Psychological trauma from disfigurement that changes how you see yourself and how others see you.

Then there’s money. The immediate medical bills are just the start. You’re missing work during recovery. Maybe you can’t go back to your old job at all because of your injuries. Ongoing therapy costs pile up. You need accommodations for disabilities you didn’t have before.

An Omaha Burn Injury Lawyer knows how to calculate what all of this actually costs and how to pursue that compensation through whatever legal channels make sense for your situation.

What Employers Are Supposed To Do

Employers in Nebraska have legal obligations under state and federal safety regulations. Store chemicals properly. Maintain ventilation systems. Provide protective equipment that actually works. Train employees on what they’re handling and what to do in an emergency. Keep emergency response equipment maintained and accessible.

When employers ignore those requirements and someone gets hurt, that’s when we step in. Your health matters. Your ability to support yourself and your family matters. If you’ve been burned by chemical exposure at work, we need to talk about what happened and what options you have going forward.