‘Cleaning my daughter’s drink bottle landed me in hospital with horrific burns’

A Newcastle mum thought she was doing the right thing by sterilising her daughter’s new drink bottle for school - but tragically, she will never make the same mistake again.

Preparing her daughter, Willow’s, schoolbag for her first day of kindergarten (prep) was something El had been looking forward to for months.

A new bag and lunch box were ready to be packed - all that there was left to add was a water bottle, purchased specially for the little girl’s first year. 

“The night before, I took the water bottle out of the box to clean it,” the Newcastle mum tells Kidspot.

Just as she had done with other new items in her kitchen before, El proceeded to “sterilise” the b.box 500ml insulated drink bottle - the first one she had ever purchased with a straw and flip-top lid - with freshly boiled water.

“My husband had taken the kids to have a bath while I got organised for the next day,” the 35-year-old mum-of-two remembers of that evening earlier this month.

“I had just boiled the kettle so it was as hot as it could be, and I wanted it to sit in the bottle for a while. I didn’t want to use detergent as I thought there would be an after-taste left behind.” 

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The accident no one saw coming

Within seconds of pouring the water, however, El suffered an horrific accident she never could have imagined was possible.

“I put the lid on (with the cover flipped open, so the straw was visible) and loosely turned it shut, but it wasn’t tight at all, and I went to put it down on the bench but the water immediately spurted out through the straw,” she recalls. 

“I wasn’t shaking it at all, but the pressure build up must have been enough for it to come out so strongly.” 

The scalding hot water instantly splashed all over El’s neck.

“It took my breath away,” she says.

“It was very hot and it felt like my skin was burning. I screamed and was crying, and panicking. My husband thought someone had died, I was that hysterical. The kids were so scared.”

El immediately treated her burn under a cold shower, which is the correct first aid treatment.

“The pain just got worse and worse, and I started feeling like I couldn’t breathe properly,” she recalls, still traumatised by the incident.

“Every time I tried to get out of the shower, it was too excruciating.” 

With her neck covered in wet face washers holding ice, El was taken by ambulance to her local hospital.

“The doctors said, ‘We don’t talk in degrees anymore in Australia, but if we did, it would be a second degree burn’,” El says. 

RELATED: How to administer first aid for burns

El immediately treated her burn under a cold shower, but the burn was still severe. Image: Supplied

A terrible burn that could've been prevented

El’s burn covered the entire right side of her neck and on parts of her collarbone area.

“It was oozing, blistering and peeling for five days and now it’s technically healed, but it’s pink and raw, and still hideous,” she says.

“The recovery was traumatic at first, but now it’s getting better, I’m worried if I’m going to have this huge scar forever.”

As she continues to tend to her wounds weeks later, El says she takes full responsibility for the accident and does not claim it to be the fault of the b.box bottle.

“I blame myself, not the bottle,” she says.

“I don’t think it would be recommended to put boiling water in a child’s bottle. I think it had a little instruction booklet, but I didn’t think it was something I needed to look at.” 

In fact, five-year-old Willow continues to use the bottle every day at school. And El is just thankful that her little girl, or two-year-old son, Alfie, weren’t in the kitchen when she was cleaning it. 

“I’m glad it was me and not them,” she says.

“I just won’t be cleaning any bottles that way again. I even think twice now about being careful around boiling water when I’m making my coffee and things like that.”

The straw flicked up from the drink bottle, causing the hot water to spray up. Image: Supplied

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b.box reminds customer's of safety warning

Kidspot has contacted b.box, and a spokeswoman has confirmed that a warning is included in each bottle’s care instructions booklet, as well as appearing on the website. It reads: “Hot liquids may cause burns. Do not use with liquid over 45°C (113°F). If using with warm contents, please be careful when opening as pressure may build up and cause liquid to spray.”

The spokeswoman added: “We are not aware of this occurring before. We are so sorry to hear that this has happened, and we hope that the Mum is ok. We take great care in designing our products to be safe and easy to use, and we provide detailed care and use instructions to help prevent incidents like this.”

Originally published as ‘Cleaning my daughter’s drink bottle landed me in hospital with horrific burns’