A dog owner from Essex suffered severe burns after rescuing his Cavapoo from a burst hot water bottle. Christian Barker was sitting on his sofa watching television with his dog, Peaches, when the bottle, which he had pressed against his back to ease sciatica pain, suddenly exploded, splitting "like a sack" down the middle. Boiling water spilled out, and Peaches yelped in pain and soiled herself in shock.
Christian picked up the burned pup and rushed her to the kitchen to soak under cold water before dashing to the emergency clinic, not realising he was burning himself in the process. He said: "All I was thinking about was Peaches – I just felt so, so guilty that she’d been hurt and in my head I just felt that everything was my fault and that I’d killed the dog. About 15-20 minutes into the journey, I began to feel really excruciating pain in my right thigh. It had been tingling a bit before that, but in the scrambled way my brain was at the time, I just assumed it was because I was soaking wet."
Emergency treatment at the vet clinic
Peaches was treated at the emergency Vets Now clinic, where Christian’s wife, Lorraine, had phoned ahead to warn staff. They took Peaches straight through for urgent burns treatment, by which point Christian’s own injuries were becoming more apparent. Veterinary nurse and first-aider Sophie Watson rushed to Christian’s help and ushered him through to the staff shower room where he could douse himself with cool water.
Sophie said: "I’ve worked in vet clinics for 25 years and, as a trained first-aider, there have been a few times where I’ve needed to help humans as well as pets. But I’ve never been in a situation as critical as this. All the way from his chest down his right side, his skin was completely scalded and was very rapidly blistering. I phoned 999, but unfortunately there weren’t any ambulances available, so we made arrangements for Christian’s uncle and his wife to take him to accident and emergency. Overall, he was in and out of the shower for an hour and a half just trying to contain the injuries as best we could, and all the time he kept asking, ‘How’s Peaches, how’s Peaches?’"
Recovery at home
While Sophie helped Christian, her colleagues gave Peaches analgesia and intravenous fluids while continuing to cool her skin. At Ipswich Hospital, specialist burns staff wrapped Christian’s injuries in layers of cling film before peeling off the scalded skin. Christian said: "It was incredibly painful, but I was in safe hands and incredibly grateful for the excellent treatment I received – not to mention the first-class help Peaches got."
After a night under observation, Peaches was well enough to leave the clinic at 8am the next day and even ate a little bit of chicken before she went. Christian got home later that day too. He said: "When I saw Peaches I nearly burst into tears – the Vets Now staff had done a brilliant job keeping her alive, but they were very honest with Lorraine that recovery wasn’t guaranteed. And after a day or so at home she took a bit of a turn for the worse and didn’t want to drink or eat. We had to give her water through a syringe and try, and hand feed her."
Day by day, Peaches began to get stronger, whilst Christian also improved. He said: "Our two recoveries have kind of mirrored each other – which feels very fitting." Peaches is now back to her normal self, chasing after her ball and back with Christian on the sofa barking at a dog food advert. Christian is back in his full-time carer role, looking after Lorraine, who has rheumatoid arthritis.
Family's decision to discard hot water bottles
Lorraine said: "We’re used to some pretty challenging circumstances in our family – but this really has been very difficult for all of us. It happened in October last year, but it’s all very raw still - it feels like it was yesterday. After the accident we have thrown out all our hot water bottles, and we’ll never, ever, again have one in the house. The one that exploded was one of the long thin ones that a lot of people use for back pain and was almost new, so it’s not like it was ancient and out of date. I’m just so grateful to Sophie and her colleagues and always will be – in our hour of need they saved my husband, and they saved my dog. I literally do not know what we’d have done if they hadn’t been there to help."
Sophie, who recently won a Vets Now customer star award for her work with Christian, said: "It was a total team effort and I’m lucky to work with brilliant colleagues. I have to say: Peaches is such a cute little character – and she’s very brave too. We’re all just so touched that she and Christian have made full recoveries. This job can be a bit of an emotional roller-coaster at times, and a happy outcome like this with such lovely feedback from Christian and Lorraine is something we just treasure as a team."
