A US nurse has relived an accident that left her with post-traumatic stress disorder after she was engulfed in flames while burning garden waste with petrol.
Doris Modlin was left with painful injuries to her face when she and her partner tried to dispose of a pile of branches and leaves in July 2018.
The 32-year-old had no idea the pile of greenery was already submerged, so when she lit a match, the vapors in the air ignited around her.
She had to be intubated and placed in an induced coma before spending months in rehabilitation, describing herself as “lucky to be alive”.
Doris, who is from Tennessee, said she wanted to share her story to raise awareness about the dangers of mishandling fuel.
She told how disaster struck when she offered to help light a match, saying: “I didn’t realize at the time but he had doused it in petrol and had a box of standard matches.
“So I went up there and tried to light a match to throw it on the brush pile and on the third strike the fumes blew up in my face.
“He was a witness and said that a huge cloud of fire just surrounded me and then disappeared.
“It was like a big freak accident. It sounded like a cannon shot when it finally ignited.
“All I remember him saying to me was ‘run’ so I turned and ran away from him.
“We went inside and he said after a few minutes my lips had turned hard ashen white and then he called the ambulance.
“I was stunned. All the adrenaline rushing through my body allowed me to not feel any pain, but I felt like my face had a really bad sunburn.
Doris was left with first- and second-degree burns to her face, neck, arms, legs and feet, as well as third-degree burns to her lips.
She recovered with “minimal” scarring from her burns and the skin treatments she needed afterwards.
But she struggled with memories of the traumatic incident and needed counseling to process the event, which left her “too scared to sleep”.
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