Burns victim’s fundraising aim ‘I want to help the charity that saved my life’
A woman who suffered 85% burns across her body is organising a fundraising bash in aid of the charity which helped her live again.
Danielle Branch was placed in an induced coma after the blaze broke out in her motorhome after a New Year gathering of touring clubs, in Addington in 2016.
She had been asleep when the blaze broke out underneath her bed.
It also left her mother Jan needing a skin graft and stepfather Gez Clark, Lenham’s town crier, in hospital with severe burns.
Long hours on the operating table may have helped with her physical recovery, but the 31-year-old from Lenham struggled to face the world so irrevocably changed.
She said: “I still have nightmares about that day. I woke up to the smell of gas and didn’t realise straight away that I was on fire.
“I was placed in a coma for more than a month and nearly didn’t make it. I thought that was it. My life over. My looks had gone and I didn’t want to be here anymore.”
Things started to change with a visit from Katie Piper, a model who had sulphuric acid thrown in her face in 2008 and who has now gone on to found a charitable foundation of the same name which helps burns victims.
This can mean anything from help accessing specialist treatments to peer support. The charity took Miss Branch for a weekend away to meet about 40 other burns survivors which helped turn her life around.
She said: “At the time I felt I was going further and further downhill. I was being supported by friends and family but they didn’t really know how to deal with it.
“After I was invited I was quite apprehensive about going but I met other survivors who understood what I was going through.
“When I came back my mum said I was a different person.”
Miss Branch decided to help secure money for the charity and last year did a charity skydive which raised £6,000.
Now the Tithe Yard resident hopes to top this with a sold-out masked charity ball at Tithe Barn on Saturday, June 24, attended by Katie Piper, comedian Vic Reeves and Terry Dunnage, a fellow burns survivor. There will be a charity auction with proceeds matched by Barclays.
Miss Branch added: “I would love to raise £10,000 from the evening for the charity as it saved my life.”