A woman has had a double stroke of bad luck that has resulted in third-degree burns all over her body, and her home has been left as nothing but smoking rubble.
Emma Colwell was enjoying her evening with her husband and two kids. They decided to light a fire pit to warm the evening. However, when she sprayed lighter fluid on the fire, the wind caught it. The flammable liquid covered her body, and a rogue spark set the whole lot ablaze.
Fire quickly covered the woman, burning her skin and melting her clothing to her body. She stood in shock as her skin burned. “I thought I was standing at the end of the drive shouting for help, but afterwards people told me nothing was coming out,” Emma told People. “They said my skin was melting off, and the reality hit me: My life was never going to be the same again.”
Her husband rushed over to her and attempted to smother the flames in vain. As her skin burned, she pulled off her clothes. “I was ripping all my clothes off,” she recalled. “My husband kept turning me over, trying to put the flames out.”
From Bad To Worse
In a panic, she ran towards her house, with her husband hot on her heels. He threw her into the shower, where he began to douse her in water. “I looked down and saw skin all over the bath. I was in a state of shock,” she said.
But running into the house was a fatal mistake. As he showered off his wife’s burned skin and finally extinguished the flames, smoke began to creep upstairs. In her rush to get into the shower, she had forgotten that she was still burning.
The two of them had inadvertently tracked fire into the house, and their home was on fire. Now, as well as her burns, they had to get out. The results were devastating. “We lost everything. I have good days and bad days, where I worry about further surgeries. I never thought anything like this would happen to me. It happened in the snap of a finger, and I could have died.”
Thankfully, the pair made it out with their kids. But the damage to their house was catastrophic. Now, Emma, mother of two, has third-degree burns over 30% of her body.