Woman suffers burns when her pressure cooker exploded while cooking soup
A woman's face swelled up like balloon after she suffered second and third degree burns when her pressure cooker exploded - while cooking soup.
Becky Fargo, 43, was cooking potato soup for her daughter Jadyn Young, 13, when the pressure cooker pressurized unexpectedly and exploded.
Becky, of South Webster, Ohio, USA, had set the machine to cook without pressure, something she had done several times before.
But when she tried to get the soup out, the cooker exploded leaving 2nd and 3rd degree burns on her face, chest and neck.
Becky, a restaurant manager, said: "I had used it about five-to-ten times in a two-year period and I had mostly used it for chili and other slow-cooker foods.
"There was no issue at all but something was different this time."
Becky was blown back by the blast and the boiling hot soup coated her chest, face and neck, sticking to her skin.
After running to wash the soup off, she woke her daughter up, who called for help.
She said: "I ripped my shirt off and splashed water on myself because the soup was stuck to me and it was burning.
"The explosion knocked me back four feet. It was huge, the lid broke."
When the ambulance arrived an air-lift was called as the nearest hospital with a burn unit was two hours away.
She was treated for a couple of hours and sent home with an ointment for her wounds.
Becky said: "The burns got progressively worse over the next 36 hours. My face swelled up like a balloon.
"Days four to nine were excruciating. They were open, oozing, crusty and they just burned. My chest was on fire."
The burns persisted for months, first swelling and then peeling and she was forced to take three weeks off from work to treat her injuries.
Becky Fargo, 43, was cooking potato soup for her daughter Jadyn Young, 13, when the pressure cooker pressurized unexpectedly and exploded.
Becky, of South Webster, Ohio, USA, had set the machine to cook without pressure, something she had done several times before.
But when she tried to get the soup out, the cooker exploded leaving 2nd and 3rd degree burns on her face, chest and neck.
Becky, a restaurant manager, said: "I had used it about five-to-ten times in a two-year period and I had mostly used it for chili and other slow-cooker foods.
"There was no issue at all but something was different this time."
Becky was blown back by the blast and the boiling hot soup coated her chest, face and neck, sticking to her skin.
After running to wash the soup off, she woke her daughter up, who called for help.
She said: "I ripped my shirt off and splashed water on myself because the soup was stuck to me and it was burning.
"The explosion knocked me back four feet. It was huge, the lid broke."
When the ambulance arrived an air-lift was called as the nearest hospital with a burn unit was two hours away.
She was treated for a couple of hours and sent home with an ointment for her wounds.
Becky said: "The burns got progressively worse over the next 36 hours. My face swelled up like a balloon.
"Days four to nine were excruciating. They were open, oozing, crusty and they just burned. My chest was on fire."
The burns persisted for months, first swelling and then peeling and she was forced to take three weeks off from work to treat her injuries.
Transcript
00:00 So this is what I normally look like.
00:04 This is me being life-flighted yesterday.
00:10 And this is what I look like now. I had a pressure cooker explode its contents
00:16 into my face. I have second-degree burns all over my face, my neck, and my chest,
00:21 and was life-flighted. They released me last night and now I'm home and they said
00:30 it'll get worse tomorrow. It may take a week for the swelling to go down.
00:35 Literally my eyes become more swollen by the hour. I can barely see as it is and
00:41 then tomorrow may be worse. So that'll be interesting, but I just want to say that
00:47 pressure cookers are very dangerous and I will definitely not be using them again.
00:56 Okay y'all, so today is day four and the swelling has gone down a lot as you can see.
01:04 I'm starting to be able to feel my lip again and stuff like that. My chest is
01:11 literally on fire today and I'm gonna have to try to clean this. Don't mind me
01:21 being in the same clothes. I'm kind of afraid to get in the water at this point.
01:23 But I'm gonna brave this storm today. But it's just so tight. When I clean it, it
01:31 starts oozing again when I have to put the ointment on it. And it's like the
01:38 longer it goes on, the more pain I'm in because the dead skin's peeling away and
01:44 then the raw skin is exposed. I accidentally rubbed my chest this
01:49 morning and then hit my chin when I first woke up. I was stretching. I wasn't
01:54 fully awake. So I'm in some pain today, but you know I'm gonna stay positive and
02:02 get through it. Thank you for all your care and concern. It's very much
02:06 appreciated.
02:08 It's really difficult. I wanted to let you know if you try a message or anything like that, you can't.
02:15 You won't be able to. I did a peel of the video from yesterday, but they denied that
02:22 too, even though that's exactly what's on all my other videos. So y'all have a best
02:29 day. Just wanted to give you an update.
02:32 So my experience with the pressure cooker happened last Tuesday at about
02:38 2:30 p.m. This is Monday at 240. So it's pretty much been a week. In some ways
02:47 it's getting a lot better and then some ways I feel like it's just as bad. I have
02:53 serious pain on my right neck, my right side. My chest is raw. My eyes, it's just
03:02 burning, causing my eyes to water. It's disgusting, but I'm pushing through it.
03:13 So just cleaned it all. I've taken some cotton pads and literally wiped off like
03:20 all the dead skin that I could without hurting myself. And then I took a shower
03:27 and washed off all the old stuff that was on it. And then put vitamin E oil on
03:37 it and then put the antibiotic ointment on it. It's looking really, really good, I
03:45 think, considering. I'm sitting here waiting on the school bus for the kids to get dropped
03:51 off and it's literally the exact same place that I got life flighted from two
03:56 weeks ago.
03:58 And it gives me goosebumps sitting here just thinking about everything that
04:07 have happened in the last two weeks and how much I have healed and just the pain
04:15 of it. Just remembering what happened. But today I'm looking so much better. My neck's
04:23 probably the raddest, really. I am so, so thankful for the healing that has taken
04:30 place so far.