A woman suffering horrific burns to her face when she fell headfirst into a campfire and has told of how she was cruelly called a ‘zombie’.
Halie Tennant,29, primary school teacher said she felt she had “lost her identity”, and recalled how she asked her husband to love her “no matter what”.
Coronavirus pandemic had heightened her ordeal, as she was only allowed one visitor for one hour each day during a long recovery process after surgery.
Lived in Victoria, Australia, Halie had gone on a camping trip with a friend, but it turned into a nightmare when she dozed off in a camping chair. Her friend, who had fallen asleep in her swag, a portable sleeping unit, awoke to murmur noise, and to her horror found Halie lying headfirst in the campfire, making no attempt to move.
Halie’s friend then pulled her out of the fire – almost certainly saving her life – and poured ice-cold water on her face to ease the burns. Halie didn’t remember how she ended up in the fire but believes the chair must have tripped while she was sleeping in it.
They both then drove back to Halie’s home less than two kilometers away, where her husband Matthew tried to cool her burns as much as possible by pouring cold water all over her face, while an ambulance, an intensive care ambulance and a helicopter made their way to the scene.
Halie then was rushed to the intensive care unit at The Alfred Hospital in Melbourne, where she was immediately put in a coma.
After rights days in a coma, she was moved to the burns ward to begin her long recovery.
Halie has spent over two-and-a-half months in the hospital and has gone under the knife six times-including to remove her damaged skin and to have skin grafts to her face, neck, eyelids, and also her mouth.
Halie says she doesn’t recall feeling any pain after falling into the campfire but she does remember the agony of fearing her husband’s reaction to what happened.
“I don’t remember any pain,” she said. “I remember asking Mathew to love me no matter what and him saying, ‘yes’.”
She mentioned that Matthew, her mum, and her dad took turns to visit while she was in intensive care, and describe the limited visiting hours due to COVID-19 as “the hardest part” of her recovery.
After being released from the hospital, she had to be readmitted around 10 days later as her eyelids were not touching. Surgeons had to operate on her further as her mouth couldn’t open enough for her to eat from a fork or spoon.
Source: Mirror