Work-related burns are a lea-ding cause of occupational injury in the United states.1 A substantial proportion of these burns occur among restaurant workers— often affecting adolescents working in fast-food establishments. This report summarizes investigations of restaurant-associated occupational burns by the state health departments in Colorado and Minnesota.
Colorado
Case report.
On June 3, 1991, the Colorado Department of Health (CDH) was notified of a work-related burn sustained by a 20-year-old employee of a fast-food restaurant. The employee had been following the restaurant's standard procedure for cleaning exhaust filters located approximately 5 feet above a deep fryer. She had placed a wooden cover over three of the fryer's four bins, all four of which contained hot grease; no cover was available for the fourth bin. While standing on a chair she had placed on the wooden cover to reach and remove the filters, she fell, sustaining second- and third-degree burns