With summer almost officially here, our products liability lawyers wanted to remind our readers to be careful when grilling and barbecuing over these next few months. While barbecues are typically fun gatherings, serious personal injuries and even deaths can occur if a defective or faulty barbecue or grill is used.
For example, an exploding propane tank or barbecue can lead to a fire, as well as serious burn injuries. Property damage can result during such incidents. Common causes of grill blasts include leaking fuel lines, broken, cracked, or improperly connected hoses, and misaligned venture tubes.
There are also the burns that can happen while someone is using the grill. Burn injuries can also result when someone is using lighter fluid to reignite charcoal. Putting lighter fluid on hot coals can lead to vaporization, which creates a very flammable environment.
Another danger that grilling can pose is possible carbon monoxide poisoning especially when charcoal is involved. Burning charcoal can generate a lot of CO, which is known as the “silent killer” because you cannot smell, see, or taste it. A person can suffer a permanent brain injury or die from CO poisoning and fatal exposure can take mere minutes.
Another safety risk that may be present at a barbecue is the wire brush, often used to clean the grill before the food is on its surface for cooking. As our product defect law firm mentioned in one of our posts last year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that people have gotten hurt from ingesting stray brush wire that got stuck in the food because the bristles got caught on the grill surface. Injuries have included esophageal injuries, throat injuries, and bowel wall perforations. In such instances, there may be reason to pursue a products liability cases against the manufacturer of the grill bristle, as well as a personal injury claim against the person throwing the barbecue and/or using the bristle.
A few other reasons why grilling accidents happen:
• Unstable grill design
• Using unsafe materials that radiate too much heat
• A distracted or inexperienced person grilling
The Consumer Product Safety Commission offers a number of grill safety
tips, including:
• Make sure that the tubes to the burner aren’t blocked by
food grease or even insects.
• Make sure grill hoses are not broken or cracked.
• Place gas hoses far away from dripping hot grease and hot surfaces
• Check to make sure that there aren’t any gas leaks
• Keep matches, lit cigarettes, and open flames away from a grill
that is leaking
• Place the grill at least 10 feet away from the hose or another building
• Don’t use the grill in a garage, carport, or below any surface
that is flammable
• Don’t try to fix any problems with the grill by yourself
• Follow the manufacturer’s operating instructions
Depending on the cause of the barbecue injury, you may have reason to pursue damages from more than one party. Contact The Gilbert Law Group® to request your free case evaluation with one of ourdefective barbecue grill lawyers.
