How it feels to have your face melted by chemicals
ONLY a handful of people truly understand what the victims of Wednesday night’s chemical attack are going through. I am one of them. I was at home in Truro, Cornwall, on a weekday afternoon in 2014 when the doorbell rang. I was 29 and ran a property company and events business, so was used to deliveries.
I answered the door, expecting a courier with a parcel. Instead, a stranger was on the doorstep. He shouted ‘this is for you, mate’, and threw a pint of sulphuric acid into my face.
I’ve been asked countless times what it felt like, but I struggle to find the words. The pain was agonising, unlike anything I’ve experienced before or since: like a burning, but somehow different than if a flame was involved. To this day, it baffles me how calm I stayed.
Somehow, I knew he’d thrown acid. I could feel my T-shirt melting and ran back through the house, into the kitchen, tearing it off before dousing myself with water at the sink.
If I knew what I do now, I’d have got into the shower and stayed there until help arrived. I should have tried to carefully remove any contaminated clothing by cutting it away and rinsed the affected area immediately, using as much clean water as possible.
Instead, I screamed upstairs to my wife, Pia. She was catching up on some sleep with our poorly 18-month- old son, Theo, thankfully putting them both out of harm’s way.
I dread to think how much worse things could have been if Theo had been in my arms when I opened the door.
I remember yelling, ‘Call 999, someone’s thrown acid into my face’, as I kept my head under the tap – I did both instinctively, and those two actions saved my life. The strength of my determination to survive astonishes me. It was a driving force that came from deep inside that completely took over.
PIAcame running downstairs, burning her feet in the acid on the floor. She told me afterwards that I kept making blood-curdling screams, which I have no memory of. I don’t know how long it was before the paramedics arrived, only that my behaviour became increasingly erratic as we waited. I ran into the street, banging on neighbours’ doors, pleading with someone to help me. No-one knew what to do.
It was a terrible blur of confusion and fear. At the forefront of my mind was the knowledge that I had crucial information about my attacker which I knew I had to give to the police.
It turned out I wasn’t his intended victim – he’d knocked on the wrong door. The man I now know to be David Phillips, a painter and decorator from Hastings, drove off in a van and I knew the make, model and colour because it was identical to one I owned – a maroon Peugeot Partner. I had to remain conscious.
I was ridiculously polite, telling the paramedics ‘I need to spit’, as though it would be rude of me to do that in front of them. ‘Just spit, spit all over us if you need to,’ they kept telling me.
I passed on the information that helped the police catch and prosecute Phillips, and then lost consciousness.
I woke up five days later in the ICU at Morriston Burns Unit in Swansea, where I’d been airlifted from Truro. I had lifechanging injuries and remained at risk of death for another month.
That first night, my wife and mum were told to prepare themselves for me not to make it; the doctors said there was a greater chance I would die than survive. For weeks, I couldn’t work out why my loved ones were wearing masks and scrubs and looking so frightened and sad. It was because the risk of my burns becoming
infected was so high – and if that happened, I almost certainly would die.
I spent two months in the burns unit. I stopped counting the number of subsequent surgeries after my 60th. I’ll be having operations and procedures for years to come, if not for the rest of my life.
The physical legacy of my attack is full facial disfigurement and scarring. My torso, arms and back are similarly disfigured and scarred. I am blind in my left eye and have limited sight in my right. I will never be the same again.
And yet my attacker walks free, having been released halfway through his 16-year sentence for grievous bodily harm with intent. In fact, after just five and a-half years, he was moved to an open prison near his family.
What sort of deterrent is that?
I’m paying the price for a crime that has cost my attacker very little. It’s mind-boggling that he is living a normal life, while mine will be forever tainted by what he did. Other countries have much harsher punishments, with perpetrators facing life.
It’s not just the impact on me – it’s what this also did, still does, to my family.
The ripples of that terrible day made victims of my children, Theo, now ten, and Lazarus, six.
They’ve been bullied by other children, who’ve poked fun at what their daddy looks like. Pia, a council insurance manager, gets upset when we sit in a restaurant where we can feel people’s eyes staring. I don’t care for myself, but she does – and that’s heartbreaking for us both.
The woman attacked this week will have to somehow find the strength to pick herself up and power on through a life very different to the one she imagined.
It will impact every aspect of her waking and sleeping life – at least, that’s what it’s done to me.