Temple University Hospital Burn Center
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

About Temple University Hospital Burn Center

Temple University Hospital's Burn Center is one of the oldest and most comprehensive burn treatment programs on the East Coast. Located on North Broad Street in North Philadelphia, the center is part of Temple University Health System — an academic medical center affiliated with the Lewis Katz School of Medicine. The burn center operates within Temple's Level I Trauma designation, meaning it receives the most critically injured patients across the Philadelphia region via helicopter and ground transport around the clock.

The center is verified by the American Burn Association (ABA), which sets the national standard for burn care quality. ABA verification is not simply a credentialing exercise — it requires independent site review, assessment of outcomes data, staffing ratios, equipment standards, and multidisciplinary care protocols including burn surgery, occupational therapy, physical therapy, social work, and long-term reconstructive planning. When your case records reflect ABA-verified care at Temple, it signals to insurers and opposing counsel that your injuries were severe enough to require the highest level of specialized treatment.

Temple's burn center serves a geographically and industrially diverse patient population. North Philadelphia and the surrounding communities along the Delaware River corridor have a long industrial history — former refineries, chemical plants, manufacturing facilities, and port operations that continue to generate burn injury cases decades after their peak operational years. Temple also receives patients transferred from community hospitals across Philadelphia, Delaware, South Jersey, and portions of Maryland who require specialized burn care unavailable at regional facilities.

Philadelphia's Industrial Burn Hazards

The Philadelphia metropolitan area and the broader Delaware Valley industrial corridor represent one of the most complex burn risk environments on the East Coast. The region's industrial legacy — built on petroleum refining, chemical manufacturing, shipbuilding, and maritime trade — creates ongoing exposure for workers even as industries have shifted and modernized.

Key burn hazards specific to the Philadelphia region include:

• Delaware River refinery corridor: The stretch of the Delaware River from Philadelphia south through Delaware County and into Delaware hosts legacy petroleum refining operations and chemical manufacturing facilities. The former Philadelphia Energy Solutions refinery at Point Breeze — once one of the East Coast's largest refineries — and neighboring industrial properties remain active in various forms, with ongoing chemical storage, processing, and distribution operations creating flash fire, vapor cloud explosion, and chemical burn exposure
• Chemical manufacturing — DuPont legacy corridor: The Delaware Valley was the birthplace of DuPont's chemical empire, and the region retains a dense network of specialty chemical manufacturers, coatings producers, solvent blenders, and pharmaceutical chemical suppliers whose operations involve caustic acids, reactive solvents, and flammable materials
• Philadelphia Naval Yard — maritime hot work: The former Philadelphia Naval Yard, now redeveloped as a mixed industrial campus, hosts shipbuilding and ship repair operations. Hot work in confined vessel spaces — torch cutting, welding, grinding — creates some of the highest-consequence burn environments in any industry
• Port of Philadelphia operations: Cargo handling, vessel fueling, and bulk liquid terminal operations at the Port of Philadelphia involve flammable and hazardous material handling with real burn exposure for longshoremen and port workers
• Construction — electrical arc flash: Philadelphia's sustained commercial, residential, and infrastructure construction boom places tens of thousands of construction workers in proximity to energized electrical systems. Arc flash injuries — which can exceed 35,000°F at the arc point — are among the most serious and underreported burn injuries in the construction trades
• Pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities: The Delaware Valley pharmaceutical corridor — centered in Montgomery, Delaware, and Chester Counties — includes dozens of active drug manufacturing plants where solvent extraction, chemical synthesis, and reactor operations can produce flash fires and chemical burn incidents

Your Legal Rights After Treatment at Temple

Pennsylvania's workers' compensation system provides the framework for most workplace burn injury claims — but it is far from the only avenue for recovery. Understanding how Pennsylvania law applies to your situation is essential to maximizing your compensation.

Workers' Compensation — Mandatory in Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania requires virtually all employers to carry workers' compensation insurance (77 P.S. § 1 et seq.). If you were injured on the job, workers' comp should cover your medical expenses — including all treatment at Temple's Burn Center — and a portion of your lost wages without requiring proof of fault. However, workers' comp has limitations: it does not compensate pain and suffering, disfigurement as a standalone award beyond a defined schedule, or loss of enjoyment of life in the way civil litigation does.

The Exclusive Remedy Bar and Its Exceptions: Pennsylvania workers' comp is the exclusive remedy against your direct employer in most cases — meaning you generally cannot sue your own employer for a covered injury. However, critical exceptions exist. If your employer committed an intentional tort or acted with personal animus toward you, civil liability is preserved. More practically, if a contractor, subcontractor, equipment manufacturer, property owner, premises occupier, or product seller — any entity other than your direct employer — contributed to your burn, you retain the right to sue them separately in civil court. These third-party claims are where substantial recovery often lies.

Pennsylvania Fair Share Act: Under 42 Pa.C.S. § 7102, Pennsylvania generally apportions liability among defendants according to their share of fault. However, any defendant found more than 60% responsible becomes jointly and severally liable for all damages. This matters in complex burn cases where multiple parties — a general contractor, a subcontractor, and an equipment manufacturer — each bear some share of responsibility. Your attorney will identify all potentially liable parties and structure claims to maximize recovery.

2-Year Statute of Limitations (42 Pa.C.S. § 5524): You have two years from the date of your burn injury to file a personal injury lawsuit in Pennsylvania. This deadline is enforced strictly. Exceptions for the discovery rule (latent chemical exposure) and minority (injury to a child) may extend the deadline in limited circumstances, but you should consult an attorney immediately rather than assuming an extension applies.

How Burn Center Records Strengthen Your Claim

Temple University Hospital's Burn Center generates detailed clinical documentation throughout the treatment process. In personal injury litigation, these records serve as the evidentiary foundation for establishing the nature, severity, and long-term impact of your injuries. An experienced burn injury attorney will obtain and analyze these records early in the case, often retaining a burn surgeon as an expert witness to translate clinical findings into terms that resonate with juries and insurance adjusters.

• Admission diagnoses documenting burn depth (first, second, third, or fourth degree) and the total body surface area (TBSA) involved — a primary driver of case value
• Operative reports from skin grafting, escharotomy, debridement, and reconstructive surgical procedures
• ICU admission and ventilator records establishing the severity and duration of critical care
• Inhalation injury diagnosis and bronchoscopy findings — inhalation injury dramatically increases the severity and prognosis of a burn case
• Wound care and dressing records showing the trajectory of healing and complications
• Physical and occupational therapy notes documenting functional deficits, contractures, and rehabilitation milestones
• Discharge summaries and outpatient follow-up records establishing the long-term treatment course
• Photographs taken during treatment — burn centers routinely photograph wounds at admission and throughout healing, creating visual evidence that powerfully illustrates severity

Frequently Asked Questions