Boy ‘afraid to sit with mum’ after pub accident left her with horror burns

dailystar.co.uk:

pub has told of the heartbreaking moment her eight-year-old son was so frightened of her scars that he refused to sit with her.On April 24 last year, April Charlesworth had been out celebrating her birthday in her local’s beer garden when the portable heater she was sitting next to suddenly exploded into flames.She says a fellow-drinker had over-filled the portable heater with ethanol “for a laugh”The man “thought it was funny to keep filling the heater up with ethanol,” April said. “He was in a bit of a drunken state, and we kept telling him not to do it”.But the drunken prank resulted in a devastating explosion.

April, 29, and her cousin Ashleigh were left with severe burns after the heater ignited, spraying them with burning fuel.April says she “just panicked,” as she realised she was on fire, adding “when you're in that situation you just don't know what to do."Ashleigh, being a nurse, knew that the right thing to do in the circumstances was to “stop, drop and roll,” extinguishing the flames.Even so, she was left with no skin on the right side of her face after the horrifying incident.Ashleigh, 28, was left with severe burns on her chest and hands, and needed to have skin grafts from her thigh to repair the damage.

April was given donor skin for her chest, arm and neck.Hospital staff took care to keep mirrors away from the two women, so they didn’t have to see the full extent of their injuries.But Ashleigh managed to catch sight of her own face reflected in the screen of a tablet computer: "I pressed the bell and the nurses came over and I was a sobbing mess,” she told the BBC, “But at least I had seen it”Ashleigh insisted on sending a photo of her injuries to April, who was being treated in another hospital: "I.