Strictly horror
AJ Pritchard’s girlfriend, Abbie Quinnen, was left with third-degree burns when a social media video went wrong…
Former StrictlyComeDancing star AJ Pritchard, 26, has not left his girlfriend Abbie Quinnen’s bedside, since she was horrifically burned, after their video for social media ended in disaster.
The accident, which happened on 19 January, but which Abbie only went public with in an Instagram post last week, is almost too horrendous to contemplate.
The professional dancer and her famous boyfriend had been filming, when a wine bottle exploded in her face, instantly setting her hair and clothing alight.
‘ Whilst we were attempting to create a glass bottle into a vase following a YouTube tutorial, it went terribly wrong and it resulted in me incurring injuries and burns requiring continuous hospital treatment over the past seven weeks,’ Abbie revealed.
The 23-year-old and AJ, who began dating in 2018, would do a weekly vlog as a couple, and had been filming a hack on how to cut a wine bottle in half, to turn it into a vase.
It even sounds dangerous – it involved dipping rope into a flammable chemical, wrapping it around the bottle and lighting a flame to it. And the horror of what happened next, neither are likely to forget.
As his girlfriend was engulfed in a fireball, AJ apparently rushed to wet a tea-towel and threw it over her. According to a source, ‘He was terrified himself, but did all he could to stop her from burning.’
AJ called 999 but, hearing that an ambulance would take a while to arrive, he and his brother, Love Island star Curtis, drove Abbie to hospital themselves. There, she was admitted to intensive care and transferred to Chelsea and Westminster Hospital’s specialist burns unit the next day.
Abbie, who suffered third-degree burns and is covered in bandages on her face, arms and head, has since made 20 hospital visits, needed three skin grafts and, it has been reported, is now worried about her future as a professional dancer.
Distraught AJ is said to have become her full-time nurse and changes her bandages daily.
Abbie, who thanked NHS doctors for everything they had done for her, issued a stark warning to anyone else thinking of copying ‘ life-hack’ YouTube tutorials.
‘I really need you all to be careful with what you’re doing and if you’re copying any YouTube videos.
I will be OK, I love you all.’
No content is worth risking this kind of shocking accident.
Wishing you the speediest of recoveries, Abbie.