Big Jeff speaks of 'horror' accident that left him with 50% burns

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The country’s most famous concert-goer has spoken of the horror of the accident which left him with 50% burns.

‘Big’ Jeff Johns, from Bristol, was injured in a cooking accident in June.

"I was burnt within an inch of my life. All over the top half of my body. So I was burnt to a crisp, really," he said.

"I was cooking a late-night dinner, smelt something burning. I checked to make sure it wasn't the thing I was cooking. I looked down and saw the bottom of my shirt had caught fire. It was really rapid, with the material, how quick it burnt.

"I went into a blind panic to try to get it under the kitchen tap. But I couldn’t operate the tap. So like I just ran into the shower and doused myself with cold water.

"I was unconscious for several weeks, I was in intensive care. It was touch and go as to whether I was going to be alive or whether I was going to have functionality in certain parts of my body."

Doctors in Southmead Hospital’s Burns Unit say Big Jeff is now making a remarkable recovery. They are using a new technique developed in Australia.

"It’s an artificial skin or a skin substitute that was developed over in Adelaide, a place that I've recently worked, where I learned how to use it,’ said Chris Wearn, a consultant in the Burns Unit.

"It’ll give him hopefully a more supple final skin result when he comes to have the final stage, which will be skin grafting."

Big Jeff – who regularly goes to more than 300 gigs a year - has been drawing and playing the drums as part of his therapy.

He has also been sent good luck messages from celebrities including Primal Scream singer Bobby Gillespie and actor Simon Pegg.