A registered nurse whose baby brother suffered chest burns after he pulled a jug of boiling water over himself has been helping to champion a national child safety campaign running this week.
Forty years on Lisa Wood still remembers the ‘terrifying’ moment when as a 10-year-old she found her 18-month-old brother Luke screaming in pain after he pulled over a jug which had been warming his bottle of milk in their kitchen.
Today, Lisa works for SpectralMD which has developed a technology called DeepView™ that combines medical imaging with predictive AI to help burns clinicians make faster and more accurate wound healing assessments so patients can receive the most appropriate treatment quickly.
Thinking back to the day Luke burned himself, she said: “He wanted his bottle out of the jug, so he reached up on tiptoes to get it, while no one was in the kitchen, and pulled the jug of boiling water all over himself. It went straight down his chest – the whole 500ml jug.
“I ran to the kitchen and found him wet and screaming. My mum came in and immediately worked out what had happened. She picked him up, ran to the bathroom and turned the shower on him while shouting at me to run to our neighbour who was a midwife and could help us.
“We stripped Luke off and carried on rinsing him down. He must have been in the shower for at least 15 minutes before he was wrapped in cling film and taken to A&E.
“Fortunately, in Luke’s case they were superficial burns but his injuries still needed dressing.”
This week Lisa and the wider SpectralMD team are raising awareness about burns prevention and wound care by running a social media campaign to promote burns safety advice as part of Child Safety Week.
The event, which is run by the Child Accident Prevention Trust and backed by organisations such as the Children’s Burns Trust, launched on Monday, June 3, and runs until Sunday, June 9.
Lisa, who lives in Hatfield, Hertfordshire, said: “Our DeepView™ technology is helping adults in the UK and we’re working really hard so that in the future it can be used to help children as well.
“First aid after a burn injury is crucial because it helps to minimise a child’s scarring and if they can then have a really good thorough assessment of their injury, which is what we’re working towards with our technology, the outcome for them will be even better.
“However, as good as our DeepView™ technology is, prevention is always better than cure. That’s why we’re so keen to promote Child Safety Week and all the helpful advice on offer from the Child Accident Prevention Trust and organisations like the Children’s Burns Trust.”
Throughout Child Safety Week, SpectralMD is promoting burns prevention tips and first aid advice across its social media platforms on Facebook, LinkedIn and X, formerly known as Twitter, with the hashtags #BeBurnsAware and #SafetySorted.
To learn more about Child Safety Week, visit https://capt.org.uk/child-
To find out more about SpectralMD, go to https://www.spectral-ai.com/
