Health

WARNING: GRAPHIC PHOTOS BELOW

A mother in the U.K. said she watched paramedics pop “100 blisters on my stomach and legs” after a hot water bottle exploded in between her legs, leaving her with severe burns.

Sophie Mason told SWNS she was using the hot water bottle to warm up after shooting a Halloween video in the rain last week. But then, Mason said, the bottle split open and scalding water burned her body.

“They were popping them [the blisters] open and covering me up to protect me,” Sophie Mason, whose husband had to rip her clothes off of her to stop the burning, told SWNS. “They told me I needed two skin grafts on my stomach and leg.”

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Mason, 29, claims the hot water bottle wasn’t over-filled and called it “an unfortunate accident, and it was my own ignorance.”

She said it was filled with water from the tea kettle, which she now advises people against doing.

“I am trying to warn people not to fill them straight from the kettle so they don’t make the same mistake,” Mason told SWNS. “It’s just not worth it.”

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The accident happened at around 10 p.m. on Sept. 30, she told SWNS. Her husband called for paramedics who arrived around 30 minutes later, but Mason said the pain made the wait unbearable.

“It feels like a long time when you are on fire,” she said. “I was complaining about the pain in my hand as opposed to my stomach and leg, even though you could see the skin blistering and peeling. The reason for this was the burn on my hand was superficial so the nerves were exposed.”

Mason claims her burns were so severe that she went into shock and her veins collapsed. She said that paramedics wrapped her burns in cooling bandages while trying to get morphine into her system.

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Mason said she was surprised by how severe her injuries were, but that the “painful” ordeal is not over yet.

“The operation needed doing,” she told SWNS of her Oct. 4 skin grafts. “It has been more painful than I expected. It has not helped my mobility at all.”

A British mom is warning others about the dangers of the flu after her 8-year-old son was hospitalized with the virus.

Janine Riley, 44, of Wadebridge, Cornwall, told South West News Service (SWNS) that her son Henry — who she described as a “fit and healthy” boy who enjoys playing rugby — recently came home complaining of a stomach ache. But his symptoms quickly worsened, developing into a high fever. The young boy also had difficulty breathing, she said.

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“He was fine one day, playing rugby, came home with a tummy ache. We put him to bed with paracetamol and ibuprofen. The next day he was [in poor condition], very hot,  and struggled [to breathe]. So we called an ambulance and within a few minutes he had been rushed to the hospital,” she recalled.

Henry was placed in intensive care. He also required a ventilator for three days.

Though the 8-year-old made it out of intensive care, his battle was not yet over.

“We had lots of physiotherapies, getting him to breathe again. He couldn’t stand up, he couldn’t walk,” said Riley.  “He’d gone in a few days from being a fit, healthy 8-year-old boy to not being able to walk down the corridor, it was really sad.”

Riley did not say whether or not Henry had been vaccinated against the flu prior to falling ill.

Health professionals recommend that everyone receive the flu vaccine. But they especially encourage pregnant women, young children and the elderly to get the shot, as they are often the most susceptible to the virus.

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“The flu shot is incredibly important because it reduces your risk of contracting the flu,” Michelle Lin, an emergency room doctor, and professor of emergency medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, previously told Fox News. “It also reduces your risk for complications and passing it to other people.”

Public Health England (PHE), an executive agency apart of the Department of Health and Social Care, is offering a free flu shot to an additional 600,000 children ages 10-11 this year. Children ages two to 11 will also be offered the nasal spray version of the vaccine, according to the Guardian.

A British family is mourning the death of their 2-year-old daughter who fell critically ill on vacation and died just weeks shy of her third birthday. Allie Birchall, who was vacationing with her family at a luxury hotel in Turkey, came down with a case of E. coli that her family is pinning on poor conditions at the resort.

“We all suffered gastric illness and there were a number of people complaining of being unwell during our stay at the hotel, but we didn’t anticipate how serious it could be,” Katie Dawson, Allie’s mother, told SWNS.

The family, who has since hired a lawyer, said the food was often left uncovered or served lukewarm, and the cleanliness of the pool and bathroom facilities were often questionable.

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“We saw feces in the swimming pool and I spoke to other holidaymakers who saw the feces in the pool on more than one occasion, and staff just scooped it out without closing the pool or giving it a thorough clean,” Dawson claims.

She also claimed the children’s bathrooms were covered in feces.

When the family returned home from their 10-day stay, Allie began suffering from stomach pains and diarrhea, she also wasn’t hungry and was acting lethargic, according to SWNS.

On July 30, she was admitted to Royal Bolton Hospital, where she was diagnosed with Shiga-toxin producing E. coli (STEC), which led to hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS).

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Nearly everyone is at risk of a STEC infection, which occurs when tiny amounts of human or animal feces enter the mouth. This may happen through contaminated food or water, or contact with feces of other people, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Symptoms of STEC vary for each patient, but it often causes severe stomach cramps, vomiting and bloody diarrhea. While some patients may get better within a week, others may develop life-threatening complications, such as HUS, which occurs in about 5 to 10 percent of STEC cases, according to the CDC.

HUS may cause decreased urination, feeling tired, and loss of color in cheeks. Patients with HUS require immediate hospitalization because of the risk of kidney failure or other serious health issues. The patients who recover within a few weeks will likely suffer long-term damage, while other cases may be fatal.

For Allie, the infection caused severe brain damage, and her family decided to end life support on Aug. 3. She died shortly after.

“In sharing Allie’s story, we want to make people more aware of the signs and symptoms of STEC HUS,” Dawson told SWNS. “I kept thinking that if I had known about the condition then I would have probably taken Allie to the hospital sooner and it wouldn’t have ended the way it did.”

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Public Health England is investigating the child’s death, according to SWNS.

“Nothing will bring her back, we need to know what caused her illness and if anything could have been done to prevent it,” Dawson told the news outlet.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday signed legislation allowing patients to buy HIV prevention pills without a doctor’s prescription.

Advocates of Senate Bill 159 say California is the first state to authorize pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), and post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP), without prescriptions.

PrEP is a once-daily pill for HIV-negative people while PEP is a medication that people take to prevent the virus from taking hold.

Rick Zbur, executive director of Equality California, said Senate Bill 159 “is a huge improvement to removing a barrier” and helps reduce the stigma around the drugs, especially in rural areas and among minorities.

Nearly 30,000 people in California use PrEP and 6,000 use PEP, according to the California Health Benefits Review Program.

The California Medical Association was initially opposed to the legislation but became neutral about it after it was amended to limit the number of PrEP pills patients can get without a physician’s note to 60 days, said Anthony York, spokesman for the association.

The association was concerned about “long-term use without physician oversight,” he said.

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The law also prohibits insurance companies from requiring patients to get prior authorization before using insurance to get the drugs, eliminating another obstacle.

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Pharmacists in California are already authorized to dispense emergency contraceptives and birth control without a prescription.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.