Ricardo Castrellon, Medical Director of the Burn Center at South Miami Hospital, says doctors most of the time have an idea of which patient can be at risk of suffering a shock, like the elderly, or the person who has some type of medical condition.

“A burn relates to loss of fluid, the skin is maintaining your fluid in your body and if your burn is open, you are going to lose fluid, plus the inflammation. So we treat this by giving IV fluids based on the dimension of the wound,” he explains.