The burns therapist who restored Becky’s shattered self-confidence

DO YOU know a health hero? We’re asking you to nominate special people in healthcare. Five finalists will receive an all-expenses-paid trip to pick up their awards from the Prime Minister — and the winner will also get a £5,000 holiday. Here, SHERON BOYLE

WITH 60 per cent of her body covered in thirddegree burns, teenager Becky Brown could not imagine a day when she’d feel her old, outgoing self again, or be able to dress in her favourite vest tops and short skirts.

‘I dreaded going back to school and hated the idea of people staring at my scars. I wondered who would want to be my friend. I struggled with it all.’

Just a few weeks after Becky, then 16, had finished her GCSEs, she woke one night to find the family home was on fire. She got out through a window, but while the rest of her family escaped almost unscathed, Becky suffered extensive burns and was taken to Pinderfields Hospital in Wakefield, Yorkshire’s regional burns centre.

‘I was burnt everywhere except my face and hands and Mum was told that I’d be in hospital for seven months,’ recalls Becky of that night in July 2015. Indeed, for several days it was unclear whether she would survive.

Smothered in cream and wearing pressure garments, she thought she would never live a normal life again. ‘I’d cry for hours and days,’ she recalls.

‘After a few days, the physiotherapists tried to get me out of bed — it took ages just to sit up and eight weeks until I could do it on my own. It was so painful, I’d cry. I felt so frightened but there was one person who helped pull me through — Tracy.’

Tracy Foster is a burns play specialist at Pinderfields, where she has worked for 13 years, supporting hundreds of patients — from babies to adults — as they learn to live with the physical and mental scars of serious burns.

‘My patients can be in hospital for months so we get to know each other very well,’ explains Tracy, 50. ‘I go through every stage with them, from helping their families travel to see them, to visiting their schools and workplaces to explain to others about their injuries.

‘I don’t see them as patients, they are much-loved family — and in Becky’s case she shares the same birth date as my daughter Jasmine, so I related to her even more.

‘When I first saw her in the intensive care unit, she was very poorly and on a ventilator. A few days later I held her hands and chatted with her while the staff changed her dressings.

‘Becky was brave from day one. She brought me to tears a few times as I watched her move agonisingly from one chair to another but she wouldn’t give up. When she learnt she had passed seven GCSEs, we all celebrated with her — it was another step on her road to recovery.’

After a month in intensive care, Becky was wheeled round to the children’s burns unit where she spent a further six weeks.

‘When I felt down and cried, Tracy helped me to look at my scars with new eyes,’ says Becky. ‘She repeatedly told me my scars tell my story — that I am a survivor and stronger than whatever tried to hurt me.’

Becky was apprehensive about venturing back into the world: ‘ Tracy walked me round the hospital, took me to the café and then outside. The first time I met my friends for a meal at a shopping centre, she came in on her day off to take me there and sat near by until she knew I was OK.’

Four months after the fire, Becky returned to school.

‘It was then that it kicked in what had happened to me,’ she says. ‘I wanted to go to school but was nervous that no one would like me or want to be seen with me.

‘So Tracy came with me a week before and gave my class a lesson in burns injuries, explained what my injuries looked like, why I needed to wear pressure garments and answered all their questions. I showed them my skin and I didn’t feel uncomfortable at all. It took all the pressure off me.’

Tracy rebuilt her confidence in other ways, says Becky. ‘I was a good swimmer, representing my city and county, but was worried about getting into a pool again.

‘Although I saw a psychologist it was 18 months before I had the