A mum experienced a “parents’ worst nightmare” when her toddler poured a mug of boiling hot tea over himself and had to have a skin graft, was bandaged up “like a mummy”. The child continues to wear a compression top for 22 hours per day one year on. Michelle Downes, 38, dialled 999 as soon as she heard what had happened to her then two-year-old son Jenson while his father Jamie’s back was turned for just a moment at their home, where their seven-year-old son Maddox also lives, in No Man’s Heath, Cheshire, in May last year.
Jamie had just made himself a cup of tea, and turned to put the tea bag in the bin, when Jenson reached up to the counter and pulled the mug down and boiling water poured all over his body. Due to the sight of Jenson in so much intense pain, he was screaming and his skin was “bright red and peeling off”, Michelle said she had to “pretend that he wasn’t (her) son” to stay calm and help cool him down by bathing him in water. Jenson, who is now three, was flown by helicopter to the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital and doctors discovered he suffered burns to the right side of his body and face – so they had to perform a skin graft and bandage his entire upper body.
Michelle thinks since the accident Jenson has become more sensitive to touch – he has to be held down to have his haircut and has his toenails cut in his sleep. Arriving home, Michelle and her husband, Jamie, a 45-year-old chimney sweep, re-arranged their kitchen so.