MUM’S HORROR SHOW
KRISTY CULLUM WAS TORCHED IN FRONT OF AN AUDIENCE WHILE PERFORMING ON STAGE
As she took to the stage, Kristy Cullum felt nothing but pride and excitement. She was performing her fire tricks routine as part of a charity concert to raise money for a local hospice.
In the audience were some of her closest friends and colleagues. All their hard work and rehearsals were paying off.
But as she prepared to perform her most daring fire-breathing stunt, something went terribly wrong.
Now, Kristy, 35, has told New Idea about the horrific moment when she caught fire on stage in front of hundreds of people.
Kristy, from Hampshire in the UK, says: “I was gearing up to spit flames with highly flammable paraffin in my mouth when I spluttered. “Some of the paraffin hit my windpipe causing me to cough involuntarily. Before I knew what was happening the fuel in my mouth was alight – I’d coughed onto the blazing sticks in my hands.”
Thinking fast, Kristy spat the flames out onto her chest and used her arms to shield her airway and her eyes from the flames coming up from her neck and across her face.
“In that moment the adrenaline just kicked in for me and I knew exactly what I had to do to survive,” she says.
“The worst case scenario would have been scorching my windpipe by breathing in the flames so I quickly spat all the burning fuel onto myself – burning my lips, chin and chest severely but it saved my life.
“Then I brought my arms up to my face with one across my nose and mouth so I could breathe and the other protected my eyes from the fire.”
The show, on June 8 last year, was a hospice fundraiser organised by Kristy’s local NHS trust, and luckily the audience was filled with trained medical professionals who rushed to her aid.
Completely ablaze, Kristy managed to run off into the wings without setting the stage alight.
At the side of the stage, volunteers used a fire extinguisher to put out the flames and an ambulance was called.
“I work as a healthcare support worker and I’m training to be a nurse so I’m good in a crisis,” Kristy says.
“It is part of my make-up thankfully, so in the moment I was able to stay calm.
“Luckily my daughter was backstage and didn’t see anything. I don’t like her to watch my act. So my friends
“BEFORE I KNEW WHAT WAS HAPPENING, THE FUEL IN MY MOUTH WAS ALIGHT”
took her to her grandparents to be looked after. Everyone just kicked into gear to take care of everything.”
At hospital Kristy was put in an induced coma for two weeks. She also received a skin graft on her neck and is still undergoing gruelling painful laser treatments for her burns.
“My recovery has been really hard on me both physically and mentally,” she recalls.
“I suffered with a lot of guilt about missing out of caring for my daughter for a month.
“I co-parent with her dad and she spent most of the week with me but that balance has shifted now.
“I also worried about the trauma I’d inflicted on my audience that day by frightening them so much.”
Despite the shocking accident and long recovery ahead, Kristy still intends to perform with fire again.
“At the moment I am only singing as part of my old act but when I get a full range of motion back and work on my confidence I absolutely want to work with fire again,” she says.
“I won’t perform the stunt that got me burned.
“Fire-breathing is off the table. But I do want to put on a show with my flaming sticks with some element of risk.
“I just love doing it, I love the rush and how powerful performing with fire makes me feel.
“People have said I am selfish and crazy putting my daughter through the worry of me performing again. But I try to liken it to a car accident – if you crash and recover, do you get back behind the wheel again?
“I don’t think in that scenario people would say you were selfish; they’d say well done.”
Now Kristy is easing herself back to work and hopes to build up her strength enough to start nursing in October.
“I’ve worked for the Basingstoke and North Hampshire NHS trust for 17 years and they’ve been amazing to me through all of this,” she says. “The support
I’ve had from friends and colleagues has inspired me to give back as much as I can going forward.
“I want to show my daughter that if bad things happen, and they will – there are risks in everything you do – what is important is how you respond and how you grow.”