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Thermostatic Mixing Valves and the Domestic Market: The Facts - ISSUE 2'.

'Thermostatic Mixing Valves and the Domestic Market: The Facts - ISSUE 1'.

How brave Amy learned to live with the scars. The Scotsman, 24 April 2006.

BATHTIME in the Riley household and mum Tracy is running the bath. It's a ritual she and her two-year-old daughter Amy go through every night.

Tracy runs the hot tap first, letting the boiling water half-fill the basin while simultaneously undressing Amy. It has been a long day and Tracy is exhausted from the strain of looking after the toddler as well as her two elder children, Stephanie and Hannah.

Turning her eyes away from the infant for a second to run the cold tap to get the bath temperature down to a soothing lukewarm, the air is suddenly filled with an ear-piercing scream.

She spins round to sees her baby daughter writhing in agony. Amy has climbed into the bath already, thinking it's safe. And the boiling water is now scalding half of her body.

Within minutes the pain has sent the little girl into shock and turned her skin an angry red.

Half an hour later, and she's in intensive care at St John's Hospital in Livingston - fighting for survival on a life-support machine. It's a nightmare scenario for any parent, but it doesn't make headlines when it happens. More than 430 children across the country get hospitalised through serious scalds every year, the extent of their terrible injuries rarely highlighted.

In fact, it is only in the last few weeks that such tragedies have been given exposure as legislation has been passed to help prevent scald accidents - with the Scottish Executive agreeing to fit thermal module valves into all new houses in order to prevent mains water becoming hot enough to scald a child.

The news has delighted burns survivors who had campaigned for years for just such a requirement to be made compulsory. Among them is Amy Riley, now ten, who for the past eight years has lived with the scars of that terrible evening at her Pumpherston home, when she suffered third-degree burns to 50 per cent of her body.

Following the accident, Amy went into toxic shock - her injured flesh was effectively poisoning her, and she had to spend 72 hours on a life-support machine.

But even after surviving the trauma brought on by her accident, she then spent the next 12 weeks in hospital receiving treatment for her burns.

"I don't really remember it happening," the Pumpherston primary pupil says.

"But I've now got scars on my legs, stomach and one of my arms.

"It burned half of my body. It doesn't really hurt now, though. I go for a check-up once a year and the doctors see whether I need to have a new skin graft, but that's it.

"But it's really annoying when that happens. I don't like getting them because they're not nice and can be painful."

Over the years, she says she has had numerous grafts on her legs, arm and torso to improve her body's flexibility - a process that involves cutting skin away from the undamaged parts of her body and grafting them onto the burned areas.

Despite the ordeal of yearly operations and the fact that she is still covered in scars, she is an upbeat little girl. "My skin tightens up because of my body growing," she says. "When that happens, it's quite difficult to move my legs or arm, so the skin grafts help make it a lot better.

"But the rest of the time it doesn't bother me. The only thing I really don't like is when people stare at me if I'm swimming or wearing T-shirts.

"I wish they'd just ask me what happened instead of staring or pointing. It's not nice."

Amy's mum Tracy, a part-time shop worker, adds that she has noticed that it is mostly adults who stop to stare at her daughter's injuries, and says she thinks it is because there isn't a lot of public knowledge about scald victims.

"When I've been out with Amy, we always notice adults who just don't know how to react when they see her. They see the scars and think that she's some kind of freak with a skin disease.

"It would be a lot better if they just came up and asked her about it. Then they'd see that she's a normal wee girl, just like everybody else.

"But she's okay at school and doesn't get any hassle about it. Everybody's used to it now.

"The only thing she really doesn't like is swimming, because she thinks that people are staring at her."

However, she adds that her daughter's confidence about her injuries owes a lot to the Scottish Burned Children's Club - an organisation set up to offer support to young burns sufferers and their families.

"She went on a camp with the other children last year, and it's really helped," she says.

"I think a lot of children with scald injuries think they're the only ones who are suffering because they never see anyone else who has been burned.

"Even when she was in the Sick Kids, she was the only patient in the burns unit, so she didn't see anyone else her age at all.

"As a parent of a scald victim, I didn't realise there were other people who had experienced the same thing either.

"But since joining the club, she's been able to talk to other children about her burns and she knows that she's not the only person who has them.

"It's a huge confidence booster, being able to see children with worse scars on their bodies and faces who are happy to walk around and not hide them."

As well as offering support, the club also spearheaded the campaign to get thermal module valves fitted into new homes, and Amy was one of the children who personally thanked MSPs earlier this week after they passed the new legislation.

"These valves are absolutely vital to make sure accidents like Amy's don't happen," says the club's chairman Mark Stevenson, an Aviation Fire Officer with BAA Edinburgh.

"I think they'll help raise awareness about the dangers of scalding water.

"Not many people realise just how dangerous hot water from the mains can be. Eighty per cent of adults still run the hot tap first when they run a bath and that's how scalds like this happen.

"It just takes a second for a serious accident to take place, but it's a lifetime of being scarred.

"Half of our child members are under eight years old and many of them would have been saved from injury if these valves had been in place.

"Even if just one child is saved from serious burns then our campaign will have been worth it."

He adds: "But we've also got to change people's attitudes.

"A lot of these children say that they get stared at by other people just because they're different, and that's both rude and wrong.

"If you spend time with them, you see that they're just normal kids. The scars don't change them and they shouldn't change people's perceptions either."

I WAS BURNED AS A BABY BUT IT DOESN'T CHANGE WHO I AM
TERI COPLAND suffered horrific burns to her head, arms, back and legs after scalding water from a kettle tipped over her after she pulled at the appliance's cord when she was just nine months-old.

Nearly a third of her body was scalded and she had to endure weeks of hospital treatment to control her third degree burns - which left her with permanent scars.

And the 18-year-old drama student at West Lothian College says she has spent her entire life having annual skin grafts on her injured body.

"They took skin from my thighs and grafted it on to my arms and the other areas that are injured," the Blackburn teenager explains. "But I've recently had a new type of graft called Integra, which uses shark skin and other materials in it which is far better for flexibility. Before, my skin would always tighten up and it was difficult to move my arm but now it's much better."

After her accident, Teri lost most of her hair and had to wear a special tissue expander on her head to help heal her scalp burns. Even now, she still has deep scarring on her left arm, where most of the skin grafts have been done over the years.

But despite her injuries, she says that she doesn't feel any embarrassment about them and doesn't want to cover them up out of shame.

"The scars are there and there's nothing I can do about that," she says. "But I don't want to hide them away or wear long-sleeved tops when it's really hot outside. I've been on holiday abroad and worn a bikini, but it didn't bother me that people were staring. I just thought that I wasn't ever going to see any of them again, so I didn't care.

"When it's closer to home, however, it can be tough. I hate it when people stare at me here because it's so rude. They think you've got some kind of disease and look away, which is really annoying.

"I'd much rather they came up and asked me about it because then I'd tell them straight away that I was burned as a baby. I don't see the need to keep quiet and it certainly doesn't change who I am."

However, she says that she hasn't always been so confident. "Secondary school was quite hard because no-one knew what to make of the scars. I got sent out of Home Economics classes because some of the other kids couldn't concentrate and some of the boys wouldn't take PE lessons with me because they thought they'd catch something.

"It was pretty nasty, but thankfully my friends are all cool with it and things are far better now at college. Everyone just accepts it."

Teri has been involved with the Burned Children's Club for five years, and although the new valve legislation wouldn't have helped her injury, she fully supported the campaign.

"Anything which can stop children from being scalded has got to be a good thing. In the club there are so many children with so many burns, it puts everything into perspective for me."

And she adds that she doesn't think it will hinder her in later life. "I'm hoping to be an actress, so I don't see why it should be a problem at all. I just hope people accept me for who I am and not for the scars they can see."

• You can get in touch with The Scottish Burned Children's Club by either writing to PO Box 1950, Livingston, EH54 6YR or calling 01506 591 999. Alternatively, you can e-mail them at enquiries@theburnsclub.org.uk or visit the group's website at www.theburns club.org.uk.