WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT Hunter Jory, 12, was playing in a field when another child threw a can of petrol on a fire, causing a huge explosion that left him with horrific burns which seared the skin from his face and body
A schoolboy begged his mum to let him die after being set ablaze in a freak fire accident.
Hunter Jory was playing with pals in a field during the school holidays when disaster struck. Another child lit a small fire – but another hurled a petrol can onto the flames, causing a huge explosion that engulfed Hunter, 12. The youngster managed to run to the home of a friend, who called his mum Kim. She rushed him to a nearby doctor’s surgery while waiting for an ambulance.
Kim, from Sheffield, said her son was in so much pain he pleaded with her to end his suffering. “It was heartbreaking,” Kim, 38, told NeedToKnow. “When I got the call saying Hunter was in agony and needed to go to hospital, I assumed he’d been run over.
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“I didn’t think for a minute that he’d been set on fire. I was mortified. One child lit a fire on a field using a flint of some sort. Another thought it was be a good idea to throw a can of fuel on it.”
Because Hunter was so close to the flames, he caught on fire. Horrifically, the youngster can even remember the moment his right side was engulfed in the blaze.
He immediately fell to the ground and tried to roll to put out the flames, with his two pals trying to take his coat off him before he started running and eventually collapsed in front of a friend’s home.
“I took him to the doctors because there’s one five doors down. They put a cannula in and kept putting water on him until the ambulance came. He was saying ‘mum, just kill me’,” Kim said.
Hunter suffered horrific burns last Monday (18 Aug).
Kim said: “It took skin and tissue on his right thigh, leg and knee. It took hair on the right side of his head, it took the back of his ear off, skin off his forehead, nose, lips, eyelids and hands from trying to take his clothes off. His skin was still cooking when we got to the hospital and he was screaming ‘put me out’.”
The boy was rushed into theatre where surgeons removed and dressed the burnt skin. He will be scarred for life and need repeated skin grafts until adulthood.
Kim added: “Scarring tissue doesn’t stretch so every time he grows, the scarred tissue will rip. His face isn’t the same face as before. I’ve explained it to Hunter but he hasn’t really processed it yet.”
Hunter’s friends have launched a fundraising page to help adapt his home, as doctors say he may struggle with stairs.
His mum is now determined to raise awareness about the dangers of fire. She said: “I want to kill the kids and the parents are devastated but it’s not their fault. There isn’t enough awareness around fires for kids.
“Teach your children about playing with fire. You don’t expect it to happen to your child. Hunter is lucky that he ran in the direction that he did because if he’d gone the other way, I would have been none the wiser and he would have been cooking in a field, screaming in pain on his own.”
To donate, go to: Donate to Hunters home and recovery aid, organized by Kirsty Lambley Bishop