A 33-year-old woman in the United Kingdom experienced such horrific burns that she was confined to a wheelchair for weeks and scarred for life after using a common period pain relief method. Jade Parsons-Mayle was left in agony when her hot water bottle exploded on her lap, despite being well within the use-by date. She was unable to walk for more than a month after the hot bottle water burst all over her legs and groin region. She had tucked the device into her pyjama bottoms to help ease her period pain.
Ms Jade lives in Ealing, Cambridgeshire. According to The Sun, the 33-year-old collapsed on the kitchen floor and woke up to her wife Jules ushering her to the bathroom. Ms Jade recalled that moments after her hot water bottle exploded underneath her clothes, boiling hot water leaked onto her lower stomach, groin, legs, buttocks and genitals. She was rushed to the nearby hospital before being referred to another hospital for specialist burns treatment.
The 33-year-old reportedly had a skin graft operation and remained in a wheelchair for over a month as her first, second and third-degree burns healed. The incident has left her skin scarred for life. She said she would never use a hot water bottle again after her incident, The Mirror reported.
"I was at home and had my hot water bottle against my stomach. I had period pains and use it a lot in the winter. I tucked it under my pyjama bottoms directly onto my skin," she said.
"I was in the kitchen just sorting things out then it burst. I didn't really realise what had happened. The side had ruptured in it. I had filled it with boiling water," Ms Jade recalled.
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"Luckily my wife was home and knew what to do. I don't think I realised what it was. I was just in excruciating pain. I passed out onto the floor for a few seconds. My wife got me to come into the bath and covered me in cold water. Funnily enough two months before I had checked the date of my hot water bottle and it was still in date by months, but still ruptured," she said.
Ms Jade said that she was unable to walk or return to work after the horrific incident. "I had to use a wheelchair to allow it to heal. I had no idea how much damage hot water could cause," she said.
Ms Jade believes the risks of hot water bottles need to be more widely known. "I think there needs to be clearer labelling about the risks and the temperatures you should be using. It should be a bit like smoking where the risks are clearly shown to you. It can cause life-changing injuries. I know more and more people are using them because of the cost of living. It's scary. When I was in hospital they said it was a really common burn," the 33-year-old said.
