Girl Gets Third Degree Burns After Touching This Toxic Plant
To uncover a horror story of astronomical levels, you may need to look no further than your backyard. Lauren Fuller, 10, England, discovered the hard way just how dangerous one plant can be after she got third degree burns. The young girl was building a den on the shore when she made the mistake of snapping off a length of giant hogweed.
The plant, now common across much of Europe, the United States, and Canada, is highly phototoxic. This mean that, should the sap get on the skin, exposure to sunlight or ultraviolet rays causes severe skin inflammation, blisters, and burns. This process can take as long as 48 hours, leading to misdiagnoses of more common ailments, most typically sunburn.
This is what happened to Lauren, who was originally sent home from the hospital near Loch Lomond. While her hands were mostly fine Sunday, the day she touched the giant hogweed, on Monday they were red and itching, and by Tuesday, huge blisters had broken out across her skin. Her parents, sure it was not just a sunburn, had to take to Google to find a diagnosis for themselves. Lauren was finally transferred to Glasgow’s New Southern General, where a specialist told her and her family she hadn’t seen anything like this in 20 years.
Because of the public health threat it presents, giant hogweed is illegal to grow in both the United States and the United Kingdom. If you find giant hogweed near your home, the best and safest method to eradicate it is to use weedkiller. If you come in contact with the plant, wash the affected area immediately with soap and water.