'My skin melted': Dad's warning after stepping on scorching sand where disposable barbecue had been
WARNING: Article contains graphic images of injury
A father suffered fourth-degree burns on his foot after stepping on "absolutely scorching" sand where a disposable barbecue had been.
Danny Howard, 33, from Chester, had driven to Barmouth beach in Gwynedd, north-west Wales, with his wife and six children for a family day out on Sunday 30 May.
After arriving at the popular spot, they used two disposable barbecues to cook burgers, sausages and hotdogs in the sunshine.
But just an hour in to their trip, disaster struck when Mr Howard accidentally stood on a scorching patch of sand where one of the barbecues had previously been resting.
He said it “absolutely melted” the skin on his sole and blistered between his toes, leaving him with second, third and fourth degree burns.
Mr Howard said it was “the most excruciating pain” he had ever felt in his life, adding: "On a scale of one to ten, I’d put it at 25.”
The barbecues had been burning for about 45 minutes and had grown cold by the time the self-employed plasterer decided to move them to a safe distance once the family had eaten.
But he said he hadn't realised the sand had accumulated all the heat from the coals of the barbecue.
He said: “Sand is just like glass at the end of the day, so it’s just going to absorb all of the heat.
"I don’t know how far that heat will travel down into the sand, but it’s quite a good insulator and it was a really hot day as well, so there was probably no escape for the heat."
Mr Howard said the top layer of sand was slightly cooler, but he encountered the trapped heat once his foot had sunk about half an inch deeper, causing serious injury.
With their cars parked far away from where they pitched camp, Mr Howard said he had to grit his teeth and walk with just a sock on while they carried all their belongings back over the sand dunes.
He spent another two hours driving his young family home to Chester, before finally taking himself to hospital.
He said: “They’d been driving for four hours just to be out of the vehicles for an hour. I felt like I’d ruined their day.
“I didn’t want them to be hanging around in a hospital, so I got them home first and I went straight to Chester A&E."
He recalled using his “big toe” to drive his van and admits he doesn’t know how he managed it.
After visiting the burns unit and being given morphine and strong anti-inflammatories, Mr Howard is currently managing the “agonising" pain at home.
He anticipates he will have to stay home to heal for six to 12 weeks, with weekly appointments at the burns unit, before he can return to work or live normally.
He said he fears for his plastering business and how he will support his family, and is also worried his foot will "never be the same" due to the extent of his injuries.
Mr Howard says he now wants to raise awareness of the dangers of barbecues on beaches, especially if young children are around.
“I’ve got an 18-month-year-old, a four-year-old, a five-year-old - and I thought, if one of them had touched it it would have just obliterated their feet,” he said.
He said while he is aware of the dangers, he did not expect that amount of heat to come from the sand.
“It’s not something you consider a risk," he said.
"You think the children are more at risk from falling onto [the barbecue] and stepping onto it - that’s what you tend to look out for. I think these barbecues should have a warning to take more care and precautions on sandy areas."
Mr Howard also pointed out that it’s impossible to tell how hot the sand is where the barbecue has been.
He believes the heat can be “trapped there for an hour or two easily”, posing a risk to unsuspecting walkers.
Mr Howard said: “If I’d never stood on the sand and I’d packed up my barbecue and gone away, somebody could have walked across that spot five minutes later with their dog or a small kid and nobody would have known. You can’t even tell the sand is hot.
“There were a couple of barbecues going on all around us as well. Obviously when people pack up and leave, that sand has absorbed all the heat and people aren’t even going to be aware of that and could stand on it.”
His accident comes after it was reported that a nine-year-old boy’s foot “melted like wax” in the exact same scenario.
Will Tyler, from Stockport, Greater Manchester, needed a skin graft after he stepped on hot sand where his parents had set up a disposable barbecue.
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