GiorgioMDover 8 years ago

Full-thickness burns

This patient was caught in a house fire and sustained full-thickness burns on his chest. The brown, leathery skin seen above is completely dead and referred to as eschar. In this particular instance the eschar poses a threat to the patient because the dead skin has lost its expandability and is restricting the patients ability to breath. As a result an emergency escharotomy was performed in order to allow the patient’s chest to expand and breath normally.