This could be a worst case scenario if the burn is deep and distributed far enough.
Former 6 year surgical RN now in a different specialty. I have seen some fucked up assholes. You’re in for a long, painful recovery following a serious wound or burn near your “Peri area” (perineum being your crack to crack, ball to ass, taint, grundle, etc. region). Think of how often you visit the bathroom and then imagine you have a third degree burn down there. It’s devastating every single time.
If really bad, he will be in the burn unit and levels of care to follow for months if not north of a year. Job, relationships, and any semblance of normalcy immediately disrupted. Burns are monumentally painful, and he will be sedated heavily until substantial healing begins. He will develop tolerance and possibly become addicted to the potent opiates, but they’re the best way we currently know how to cope with that level of pain short of a spinal or other nerve block which are also options. Medicating at that level can also be very expensive, I’ve seen ICU patients with over $5,000 a day in IV medication costs alone, 7 days a week, not including any other charges for the room, MDs, nursing and ancillary staff, and supplies for starters.
Staff may have to place a fecal catheter less than a foot up his anus to drain his feces so they don’t contaminate his burn wounds. His poo goes into a bag and has to be emptied and measured as they’ll give him laxatives to loosen and prevent clogged drain lines. Fecal contamination generally results in rapid infection, and peri wounds are at an extreme risk for MRSA and flesh eating bacterial infections. I’ve seen entire legs removed to combat severe peri, groin, or hip joint infections. This is usually following weeks or months of previous failed treatments, but still. We can work wonders until we can’t, and even then there’s always amputation.
If he needs skin grafts, they can be sourced from a human or large mammal cadaver like cows and pigs. I’ve also seen skin grafts harvested from the front of a patient’s thigh and reattached to the burn area (abdomen). The grafts aren’t actually solid strips of skin, rather, they are more like tight lace with repeated spaces between skin making the graft look like a Kleenex with several hundred small oval shaped holes in it. These spaces make it easier for the graft adhere and conform to the wound bed.
The surgeon uses a specialized skin shaver that’s handheld, covered in a sterile barrier with single use blades, very similar to deli counter meat slicers but on a smaller more specialized scale. So not only did the patient have a burn on her abdomen, but a very unusual, superficial wound on her right thigh that looked liked like we had lightly crushed her leg with a cheese grater. The primary benefit of harvesting skin grafts from ourselves is we (usually) don’t reject ourselves, and rejection is the biggest complication accompanying foreign body transplants.
He’ll also need to lay on his stomach throughout this whole ordeal due to the location of the burn and subsequent wound. Imagine months lying on your stomach in 6-11/10 pain. Moving your leg a little too much could literally split your brand new ball sack skin. It’s a personal living hell. Diet will also be bland as fuck when he’s actually allowed to eat again. Social and professional life obliterated. This could set him back years and give him decades of PTSD.
He should consider himself “good” when he can sit and shit without bleeding out or collapsing in pain. On the even shittier side, this, or whatever transpires for this poor guy could easily kill or disable him for life. This could go in a thousand directions for him, and 880 of them result in the quality of his life being worse than it was prior to The Incident.
If his burn is bad enough and he really does require months of care, his bill from arrival at the ER to discharge from outpatient rehab and specialty care will easily exceed 1 million in the US. Two million would push it, but also not shock me either. I’d bet on 1.2-1.5M if he’s inpatient for 2.5 months and receiving follow up care for 1.5 years. Overall, don’t fucking do this. If you drink around fireworks you need a sober or not shitty friend who won’t let you do this kind of stupid shit. We can all learn from these videos even though were not the dumbass with the firework up his ass.
Rescuing this copypasta from reddit.