‘A JUG OF WATER
ALMOST KILLED OUR BABY’
Sarah Robinson knew how curious her 1-year-old daughter, Evie, could be. The safetyconscious mum installed latches on all kitchen cupboards and even replaced her oven for one that locked to make sure her Brisbane home was as child-proof as possible.
When it came to her kitchen, the 31-year-old mum was convinced her benchtop was safe for the time being. After all, she hadn’t seen Evie – then aged 17 months – be able to reach anything on top of it before.
When she did, it was all too late. On the evening of October 16 last year, Sarah, a full-time working mum, was preparing a bowl of homemade raspberry jelly for partner Chris, 39, to take to work the following day. It was something she had done every day since before Evie was born.
“I put the Pyrex of boiling water and jelly crystals to steep about half way into the bench, thinking Evie couldn’t possibly get to it from that far away even on her tiptoes,” Sarah exclusively tells New Idea. “But I was wrong.”
Sarah turned her back on the steaming jug for less than one minute – just enough time to place a baby bath into the kitchen sink to fill up – and in that time, her worst nightmare unfolded in front of her very eyes.
“In those few seconds, Evie had gone from playing in the lounge room to reaching out for the jug and as I turned around to her, it tipped all
“AS I LIFTED HER UP, I COULD FEEL HER SKIN COMING OFF UNDER MY FINGERS”
over her head and body, like a scalding-hot shower,” the traumatised mum recalls.
“Her screams were the worst sounds I’ve ever heard. It was just so awful.”
The horrific image of her daughter’s severely burned face will never leave her.
“The skin on her face was melting off,” Sarah painfully remembers.
The panicked mum yelled out to Chris to call an ambulance while she quickly removed Evie’s clothes to treat her daughter’s burns under a cool shower.
“As I lifted her up, I could feel her skin coming off under my fingers,” says Sarah, who was relieved to know what to do thanks to a first-aid course that she and Chris took during pregnancy.
“We got her under the water and she screamed her heart out.”
At Queensland Children’s
Hospital, Evie came close to losing her life.
“Her oxygen kept on dropping and they had to give her two lots of morphine via injection but had to keep stopping and starting so many times because her heart rate also kept dropping,” Sarah explains.
“They were very worried she could go into shock. The whole time she’s lying there with her face bubbling and blistering in pain.
“Her skin was literally hanging off her.”
Evie suffered burns to 20 per cent of her body, from her head, arms and chest.
For weeks, all her parents could see of their little girl was tiny specks of her big blue eyes and lips beneath layers of bandages covering her entire upper body.
The brave toddler endured three painful debridement surgeries where her skin was “scraped and cut off using a sponge like plastic wool”.
“She came out of her third surgery and was completely bald and bright red, covered in scabs all over her face,” Sarah tearfully remembers.
“Before the accident, we hadn’t even had her first haircut.”
Just two weeks after her parents took her home following a month in hospital
– her little body still covered in red welts and blisters – Evie’s condition deteriorated so much her parents feared they had lost their little girl.
“She ended up with pneumonia twice after the surgeries,” Sarah explains. “She became lifeless and grey, it looked like she was dead at one point.”
Now five months on, the entire family is still very much scarred by the accident that changed their lives and at the same time, overwhelmingly grateful for the miracle that kept little Evie alive.
“Looking at her face, you wouldn’t even know it happened to her,” a tear-filled Sarah says of the now 21-month-old, adding that she and Chris are building a new home where all food preparation will be done in a closed-off butler’s pantry.
“But she has a long road ahead. She has burns on moving parts of her body so it hurts her to do simple things and there is a lot of deep tissue scarring that might need skin grafting. She’ll need monthly check-ups for the next 18 years.”
“She’s also scared of a lot of things still but it’s getting better, ever so slowly and she’s even nurturing her own dolls now, which is beautiful to watch.”