WFXG Fox54 Augusta-Your News One Hour EarlierBurn Center takes FOX54 on a tour

The doors are always open at the Joseph M. Still Burn Center in Augusta, part of the reason the facility's president says the treatment center is so successful.

"No one is ever turned down, despite who they are, what they are, they're always welcomed here at the burn center," says Dr. Fred Mullins the President and Medical Director of the center. 

Patients like 11-year-old Clayton Hughes come to the center after suffering from all different types of burns. 

"I didn't really know what was going to happen," says Clayton about a bad burn he suffered on New Years.  

Clayton was feeling under the weather and had a bad sinus infection and was told by doctors at another hospital to breathe over some steaming water, but that water knocked over, spilling all over the young boy. 

"It was pretty scary because his skin was hanging like it had been dipped in acid or something and he started throwing up everywhere and hollering in severe pain," says Jamie Hughes, Clayton's father. 

The little boy's family rushed him to the hospital and then he was transferred to the burn center for treatment.   

"They said there was nothing they could do for him and he was better off here at doctors hospital, so they sent him down here," says Jamie. 

Patients who are admitted to the Joseph M. Still Burn Center come from all over the Southeast and the rest of the country. The facility, which is one of the nation's leaders in burn research and care, started in the 1970's with just one bed. 

"A patient came into the emergency room, he didn't have any funding and there were a few burn centers in the distance there, and none of them would take the patient," says Dr. Mullins of the first year the burn center opened. 

Dr. Joseph Still convinced the hospital to dedicate just one bed to burn victims, and treated 40 patients that first year. 

"It's just grown, the phone never stops ringing," says Dr. Mullins. 

Now, the center treats about 3,000 patients a year and houses a clinic, and burn unit, providing inpatient and outpatient care, all with the help of a team that specializes in the treatment of burns. 

"They're very dedicated to the burn center as well as to each other," says Dr. Mullins. 

 That dedication is what made all the difference for Clayton and his family. 

"I knew they knew what they were doing and that sort of made me comfortable," says Clayton. 

His father agrees. 

"I mean its just a good hospital, good service,"says Jamie.