Key takeaways:
Hot water bottles, a common household item can cause serious burns to both pets and people.
Peaches’ owner immediately cooled her burns with cold water as rapid cooling is one of the most important first aid steps for burn injuries.
Our Vets Now colleagues went above and beyond, treating both Peaches and her owner
Both Peaches and her owner made a full recovery, although their injuries were serious, both gradually recovered and the family remains grateful to the team who helped them.
A super-cute dog and her devoted owner suffered terrible burns when a hot water bottle exploded and soaked them both with scalding water.
The freak accident happened just as Christian Barker and his Cavapoo Peaches were settling down on the sofa to watch television around 9pm.
Christian, who suffers from sciatica, had just filled the hot water bottle and put it behind his back when it split like a sack down the middle.
To make matters worse, because he’d been momentarily distracted, Christian had forgotten to add some cold water – and instead filled it with boiling water straight from the kettle.
As it exploded, terrified Peaches yelped in pain then pooed herself in shock. Without a thought for himself, Christian rushed to the kitchen to soak her under cold water.
And with two-year-old Peaches in visibly increasing pain, Christian then put her into the shower at the coldest temperature possible to try and cool her burns.
He was in such shock and so fixated on helping Peaches that Christian didn’t realise he himself had suffered appalling burns down the right side of his body.
Instead, he jumped into his car and drove Peaches, cradled by his son Ryan, from their home in Ipswich, Suffolk, to our Vets Now emergency pet clinic in Manningtree, Essex.
Christian said: “All I was thinking about was Peaches – I just felt so, so guilty that she’d been hurt and in my head I just felt that everything was my fault and that I’d killed the dog.
“About 15-20 minutes into the journey I began to feel really excruciating pain in my right thigh.
“It had been tingling a bit before that but in the scrambled way my brain was at the time, I just assumed it was because I was soaking wet.”
On arrival at our clinic, where Christian’s wife had phoned ahead to warn of the unfolding drama, our team whisked Peaches through for urgent burns treatment.
By which point Christian was gripped by such crippling pain that he began frantically taking off his clothes because they were sticking to his inflamed skin.
Veterinary nurse and first-aider Sophie Watson rushed to Christian’s help and ushered him through to the staff shower room where he was able to get privacy and, under Sophie’s expert guidance, douse himself with cool water.
Sophie said: “I’ve worked in vet clinics for 25 years and as a trained first-aider there have been a few times where I’ve needed to help humans as well as pets.
“But I’ve never been in a situation as critical as this. All the way from his chest down his right side, his skin was completely scalded and was very rapidly blistering.
“I phoned 999 but unfortunately there weren’t any ambulances available so we made arrangements for Christian’s uncle and his wife to take him to accident and emergency.
“Overall, he was in and out of the shower for an hour and a half just trying to contain the injuries as best we could and all the time he kept asking, ‘How’s Peaches, how’s Peaches?’
“We meet a lot of very devoted owners but I don’t think I’ve ever met someone quite as visibly attached to their pet as Christian – it was really quite humbling to see how even though his injuries were much worse than his dog’s, it was the dog he was concerned for not himself.
“Of course, there were no clothes he could put on – so we had to dress him in one of our blue clinical gowns that we use when operating on a pet.
“Then I arranged for the car to come to our side door so that Christian didn’t have to walk out through our main reception half-dressed.”
While this was going on Sophie’s colleagues were giving Peaches analgesia and intravenous fluids while continuing to cool her skin.
At Ipswich Hospital, specialist burns staff wrapped Christian’s injuries in layers of clingfilm before then peeling off the scalded skin.
Christian said: “It was incredibly painful but I was in safe hands and incredibly grateful for the excellent treatment I received – not to mention the first-class help Peaches got.”
After a night under observation Peaches was well enough to leave the clinic at 8am the next day and even ate a little bit of chicken before she went – with her shaved fur showing very extensive burns down her left side.
And Christian got home later that day too.
He said: “When I saw Peaches I nearly burst into tears – the Vets Now staff had done a brilliant job keeping her alive but they were very honest with Lorraine that recovery wasn’t guaranteed.
“And after a day or so at home she took a bit of a turn for the worse and didn’t want to drink or eat. We had to give her water through a syringe and try and hand feed her.”
Day by day though Peaches began to get a little stronger, whilst Christian as well began to get better.
He said: “Our two recoveries have kind of mirrored each other – which feels very fitting.”
Peaches is now back to her normal self – chasing after her ball and back with Christian on the sofa barking at her favourite bit of TV: a dog food advert!
And Christian is back in his full-time carer role looking after Lorraine, who has rheumatoid arthritis.
Lorraine said: “We’re used to some pretty challenging circumstances in our family – but this really has been very difficult for all of us.
“It happened in October last year but it’s all very raw still - it feels like it was yesterday.
“After the accident we have thrown out all our hot water bottles and we’ll never, ever, again have one in the house.
“The one that exploded was one of the long thin ones that a lot of people use for back pain and was almost new so it’s not like it was ancient and out of date.
“I’m just so grateful to Sophie and her colleagues and always will be – in our hour of need they saved my husband and they saved my dog.
“I literally do not know what we’d have done if they hadn’t been there to help.”
Sophie, who won our Vets Now customer star award for her work with Christian, said: “It was a total team effort and I’m lucky to work with brilliant colleagues.
“I have to say: Peaches is such a cute little character – and she’s very brave too.
“We’re all just so touched that she and Christian have made full recoveries. This job can a bit of an emotional roller-coaster at times and a happy outcome like this with such lovely feedback from Christian and Lorraine is something we just treasure as team.”
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