Into hot water head first: distribution of intentional and unintentional immersion burns.

Introduction: Experience with several, previously unreported, intentional face-first immersion burns led us to evaluate the distribution of inflicted and unintentional immersion scald burns in a hospital series.

Setting: (1) Authors' clinical and legal practices; (2) Burn center at regional Level 1 trauma hospital.

Subjects: : (1) Case series of face-first, inflicted immersion burn victims; (2) Consecutive hospitalized scald burn victims younger than 5 years old, 1/3/1996 to 3/25/2000.