Here, Kristy, 28, tells the story in her own words.
On a hot summer day my toddler Jack, two, rushed into the backyard. ‘Play, Mummy!’ he said. ‘All right,’ I laughed.
Being nine months pregnant, I waddled out to turn on the hose and splash him a bit. But the second water touched his feet, he started screaming. ‘Burns, Mummy!’ he sobbed. ‘Oh my god!’ I cried. Even though the hose had been under the patio in the shade, the water was boiling. The hot weather must have warmed it up. Rushing Jack inside, I planned to pour cool water over his scorched skin. He’d been wearing socks, but they’d trapped the scalding water against his flesh and I was shocked to see how badly hurt he was. But when I turned on the cold water tap inside, the water came out hot, too.This is like a horror movie, I thought.
Knowing he needed treatment, I rushed him to hospital. ‘His left foot has second degree burns,’ the doctor said. They ran cold water over his feet but his blisters kept getting bigger. I was told to drive him to a burns unit in Brisbane, six hours away. It broke my heart listening to him whimper in pain the whole way there. ‘We’ll remove the blisters, the fluid inside them and the dead skin,’ a doctor said. There was a big puffy blister over his left foot and another two on his ankle. They took 30 minutes to remove. Finally they bandaged up his foot and attached a sachet of cold water to keep it cool.
Back home, I stuck his injured foot out of the bath when I washed him. ‘It’s hurting, Mummy,’ he said to me. ‘I know darling,’ I sighed, feeling awful. ‘Naughty hose!’ he cried.
Four days later, the bandages were removed. Although his foot looked sore, thankfully it wasn’t infected. Within a couple of weeks, it had healed well. Afterwards, I discovered the water pipes hadn’t been buried deeply enough into the ground. That’s why the water had got so hot. Be careful of hose pipes, I warned on social media. My child got scalded badly!
Attaching photos of Jack’s burnt foot, the post went viral. A year on, his foot is still red and shiny. If it ever gets burnt again, it could go black, so I make sure it’s always covered outdoors. And now when it gets hot, I ensure that he and his little brother Ruben, 10 months, stay well away from the naughty hose!
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