A mother has spoken of her fears that her eight-month-old baby will be scarred for life after she dipped her hand into a boat of piping hot gravy at a pub. Catrin Griffiths, 29, from Bangor in North Wales, was having a roast dinner with her family when a waitress placed the gravy boat on her daughter Neli Hughes's placemat.
In a split second, Neli put her left hand into the jug, yelped, and as she pulled it out, spilled the rest of the hot liquid over her left leg. The nursery worker stripped off her daughter's gravy-soaked clothes, held her hand under a cold tap for 10 minutes, wrapped the burns in a damp muslin cloth, and took her to A&E at Ysbyty Gwynedd Hospital in Bangor.
Transferred to specialist children's hospital
Because of the severity of the burns, Neli was transferred to Alder Hey Children's Hospital in Liverpool, Merseyside, where dead skin was scraped from her burns before they were covered in gel and dressed in gauze. A doctor said Neli had suffered a third-degree burn on her hand and a superficial burn on her left leg.
Catrin described the incident as a "silly mistake" but is now warning other parents not to place hot liquids in front of babies or small children. She said: "The waitress started bringing the food out. She brought out a hot jug of gravy and she placed it on Neli's placemat so it was directly in front of her. It was a silly mistake that she [the waitress] did this. You would never put a pint of beer or cup of tea in front of a baby, so why would you do this?"
Mother's panic and baby's pain
Catrin described the moments after the accident: "When it's your child and it happens so quickly, you go into a panic. I stripped her clothes off her as they were covered in gravy. She was screaming for so long. Her hand was red and raw looking, it didn't blister for 20 minutes. At this point [at the hospital], her hand was swollen and blistered and some of the blisters were popping. She was screaming and in agony."
She added: "I was heartbroken and I felt so useless as I couldn't do anything but to sit and wait and watch her in this pain, it was awful."
Ongoing treatment and warning to others
Since the incident, Catrin has taken Neli for check-ups and to have her dressings changed. She fears Neli may be left scarred for life and says she will have to be careful in the sun from now on. Catrin said: "She does have a lot of scarring on her hand now and they don't know if this will heal or not. When she gets into the bath her hand changes colour and goes really red, we have to watch her in the sun as it was such a bad burn."
Now Catrin is raising awareness about the dangers of placing hot items within a child's reach. She said: "I would just say, you need to be really careful and think before you put things down in front of a child. Make sure you put hot things further away from children. It's not even just hot things, you wouldn't put a knife and fork in front of a baby, due to the danger it carries. When they get to this age, they're so inquisitive and want to learn so they're constantly touching everything and picking things off the ground. They're into everything. If this had never happened to Neli, I wouldn't have thought this was something to worry about."
