A significant number of people love to visit the tanning salon during the “off-season” to maintain their tan year-round. The season for sun and lazing around by the beach may be over, but that does not have to mean losing your sun-kissed glow and going back to looking pale. Depending on your lifestyle and desired shade, you may have to go several times a week. Tanning salons typically offer discounts and loyalty incentives for people who go more often, and you usually pay a monthly fee to go as frequently as you desire.
To keep their tanning beds in good working order, and to prevent tanning bed burns, tanning salons have to change their light bulbs on a regular basis. Whether you go to a stand-up tanning bed or a lay-down tanning bed, these tanning beds use high UV-ray emitting light bulbs, and that is how you get a tan. The light bulbs in the beds give off both heat and UV rays, and these rays give color to your body similarly to how the sun does.
When tanning salons maintain their machines, they should change all the bulbs in a bed at the same time. This ensures that the bulbs give off the same energy and strength, and it helps customers avoid uneven lines or differently colored patches on their faces and bodies. If a salon changes only one bulb and leaves the rest unchanged, or if they change several while leaving a couple unchanged, it can cause major problems for its customers.
How Do Customers Get Tanning Bed Burn Injuries at a Salon?
Since tanning beds use bulbs that emit UV rays, a long-term effect of frequently getting a tan with a tanning bed is developing skin cancer. This means lying on a tanning bed is not all that safer than actually lying under the sun. In fact, the CDC reports that as many as 170,000 cases of skin cancer were caused by tanning beds. In recent years, as a way to discourage people from going on tanning beds, the FDA has mandated tanning salons to have conspicuous signs warning people of the health hazards tanning beds pose, such as incurring tanning bed burns.
You see, as for the short-term effects of lying on a tanning bed, the most common injuries are burn injuries. In fact, 80 percent of tanning-related injuries in hospital emergency rooms were burns. The most common burn injuries that you can get at a tanning salon are caused by bulbs that give off unequal levels of temperature— some being too low, and some being too high. If a bed has bulbs that emit temperatures that are too high, they can cause burns in various areas of a customer’s body. If it has uneven bulbs, it can cause sporadic burns on your body. However, the way it goes, you will be in pain. You may need to seek medical treatment for your burns, depending on how severe they are.
Another way people get burned at a tanning salon is through the negligence of the operators. The tanning salon and its employees must set the timer and strength of a tanning bed, depending on the kind of tan you opt for upon signing up. They also need to check up on you once the timer is up, in case you fall asleep.
Furthermore, the tanning salon staff is supposed to discuss with you what kind of tanning package you want. If you are new to tanning, you should start with a low-wattage bed, and your tanning sessions should be much shorter than those of a person who has been doing it regularly. Until you have developed a higher tolerance for the bulbs and the temperature, you do not want to overdo it. The same principle applies whenever you introduce something new to your body, you start low and slow. If the tanning salon employees set your timer too high or assign you to a stronger bed knowing that you are new to it, they may be liable for your injuries by reason of their negligence.
Do Crestview Tanning Salons Warn Their Customers?
The short and simple answer to this is that they should. Whenever you undergo any alterations to your body, the establishment that provides the service must warn you of the risks and any side effects you may encounter. However, it tends to be more complicated than that. When customers go to the tanning salon for the first time, the staff has the responsibility of explaining the tanning process to them. This includes going over the strength of the beds, the length of the tanning sessions, and the lotions available. If the staff don’t do this, customers are at risk of getting seriously hurt, and they may incur unsightly and dangerous tanning bed burns.
The problem with a lot of tanning salons is that most of their employees are not tanning experts and have not gone through the proper training. The only experience they have is their own time spent in the tanning beds, and very few of them go to special training or seminars about tanning. They certainly are not dermatologists or medical doctors. They are typically young people paid a minimum wage to wait on customers and keep the tanning salon clean.
When a customer goes into a tanning salon for the first time, they usually have no idea what they are supposed to do. They may not be aware of the risks of the procedure and may be ignorant of the fact that they may incur tanning bed burns. Even those who have experienced tanning beds before will need some form of help when they visit a tanning salon for the first time. They have to rely on the staff at the salon to tell them what package is best for them, and to assist them in the tanning process. Because they are more trained in sales than client safety, the agents usually convince customers to get higher-priced packages than they probably should at first to make more money for the salon. This causes people to tan too long, and too fast. Naturally, this can cause harmful and painful burn injuries.
Contact a Personal Injury Attorney in Crestview
If you have suffered a tanning bed burn or other serious injury in the hands of a tanning salon in Crestview, you need to contact a personal injury attorney. Your attorney can review your case and answer any questions you may have. He will look at your injuries and see how bad they are, as well as the expenses you incurred for the treatment of your injury. If your injuries are not significant and do not require extensive medical attention, you may not have a strong case against the tanning salon.
In order to be entitled to recover compensation from the tanning salon, you have to have suffered actual damage, and you have to be able to prove the same. This means you have to suffer a loss due to your injuries. If you only suffered minor burns, you probably will not qualify for damages.
Your attorney will let you know what your case may be worth. He and his dedicated and experienced staff will contact the tanning salon and try to negotiate an out-of-court settlement on your behalf, as most businesses will not want a claim to be filed in court. Doing so may bring bad publicity to their business, which could mean a decline in clientele. If an out-of-court settlement is not possible, he will have no choice but to file a lawsuit in civil court.
Contact a lawyer today and schedule your initial consultation. It is absolutely free, and you pay nothing until you settle your case.