iStockphoto / grafoto/Benjamin Robinson
A woman whose leg was “burn to a crisp” after her vape caught fire in her pocket, leaving wounds so bad she was sick from the smell of burnt flesh, is raising awareness about her experience. And while vaping is growing slightly less popular it is still a very common habit for over 13 million Americans.
Kerri Absolom of Dorset, England experienced the incident back in 2022 but has recently gone public with her story. She spoke with the UK outlet Need To Know about looking down to find her pocket was on fire and the pain and burns that she suffered from the incident.
Looking back, she says “the smell of burnt flesh made me feel sick.” Which, for anyone that has ever been hit with wafts of bubbling or charred flesh, they can sympathize.
She described the incident in detail about how her vape caught fire and she fought to put it out and get it out of her pocket. Kerri told Need To Know “I’m not squeamish, so I looked and was shocked to see my leg had been burnt to a crisp. As I saw a small flame begin to flicker in my pocket, I tried to furiously pat it out with my hands.”
It was at that point things took a turn for the worse, according to PEOPLE. She says “there were sparks jetting out of the battery like a firework. I tried, along with my husband, Christopher, to yank my trousers off as it got worse. We’d almost got them off when the vape battery fell through my trouser leg and onto the dog bed. The sparks fizzled out, but as it was scorching hot, the hissing battery melted through the bed into the carpet.”
So at this point the vape caught fire in her pocket, burned a hole through, she fought to get her pants off, it fell onto the dog bed and torched that. But she wasn’t quite yet aware of the damage that had been done to her body.
Absolom went on to say “my hand was in such throbbing pain that I hadn’t even registered what it had done to the rest of my body. But as I went to rinse them under the tap, I looked down and noticed my leg was so badly burnt that the skin was rolling into one oozing mass.”
We are all fortunate to have never had to describe our skin as “one oozing mass” after a vape caught fire and burned us to a crisp… She was given morphine at the hospital for the excruciating pain and spent a week there, undergoing a skin graft in the process.
The burns were so bad that the smell of toast would cause her to panic, bringing back memories of the incident. Think about this the next time you refill your vape and toss it in your pocket! She came forward with this story to raise the alarm about the dangers of vaping beyond what it is doing to lungs…. So, maybe, think about sharing this article/story with someone in your life who wants to quit vaping but needs a little extra motivation.
There are photos above on the Need To Know website showing the extreme damage done to her skin, for those that might want to see that.
Content shared from brobible.com.