Woman suffers horror burns as ‘fireball’ shoots into her face and garments ‘soften’ on to physique

WARNING GRAPHIC CONTENT: LaRisha Allen lit a candle in her camper van when a ‘fireball’ shot at her face, causing the van to explode and leaving her with burns all over her body

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A woman was left with horror burns after her camper van exploded and sent a fireball shooting straight into her face. LaRisha Allen had been letting her dogs Sydney and Rue out to use the bathroom when the explosion took place.

As the 35-year-old cracked the door of her stationary home open to let her animals out, she claims she grabbed a lighter to burn a candle.

But as she went to light the wick, she claims her mobile home ‘blew up’, sending parts flying 20-feet into the air as a ‘ball of fire’ shot directly into her face and blasting her out of the van.

Shocking photos show the factory worker’s face, hands and legs covered in red, raw burns from the accident. In a panic, LaRisha says she called emergency services as she took off the clothes which had melted to her body.

When paramedics arrived at the scene, she was rushed to the trauma burns unit at the UPMC Mercy Hospital in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, US, to be treated.

After being transferred to the trauma ward in the ICU, LaRisha underwent six surgeries to clean and remove the dead skin from her body before having skin grafts. She then spent two weeks lying under a heat lamp ‘like a lizard’ for up to 10 hours a day to help dry out the skin donor sites.

LaRisha has now had 90% of her bandages removed and is undergoing physical and speech therapy and is having to learn how to walk again.

After speaking to a fire marshal who attended the scene, she believes the explosion was caused by propane gas leaking into her camper walls from her fridge.

LaRisha is now warning others about this odourless gas and urges everyone to get a propane detector in their home. LaRisha from Moundsville in West Virginia, US, said: “I got up to let the dogs out to go to the bathroom.

“I was standing at the front door and opened it to let them out. I grabbed a lighter to light a candle and this is when the whole thing blew up.

WARNING GRAPHIC CONTENT BELOW

“I remember a ball of fire came straight from the lighter into my face. I threw the lighter down and the next thing I remember I was outside on my porch. When it blew up it blew me outside.

“The one thing that stuck with me is that I could hear myself screaming and it was a guttural scream that I had never heard myself scream before.

“From what I remember I ripped my sweatpants off me as they began to melt onto me. The camper was just a shell at that point. It blew the backside off probably 20-feet up into the air.

“There was no smell of gas so it was almost a silent killer. It was the scariest thing I’ve ever been through.”

Before undergoing her skin graft surgery, biopsies of Larisha’s skin were sent away so more could be grown in a lab to cover her burn sites.

She says she was also intubated a couple of times after recovering from her skin graft operation as her dressing changes were so painful.

LaRisha said: “A lot of my skin was hanging off of me so they had to remove this. They said 37% of my body was burnt.

“Once my grown skin came in, I went into surgery and when I came back out, they counted the donor skin as what has been burnt so I went from 37% to almost 80%.

“When the CEA [lab grown skin] grafts go on, it’s a very thorough and sterile process, so for seven to 10 hours a day I had to lay under heat lamps to dry out those grafts. I felt like a lizard.

“My legs from my ankles to my waist were wrapped up for the most part of the day.

“The dressing changes were excruciating at times. The donor sites were so thin that the nerves were exposed.

“This was probably the worst pain I’ve ever felt in my whole life. It was worse than the burns itself.

“They intubated me on a couple of occasions for the dressing changes to give me a break from the pain.”

LaRisha says certain parts of her body will be scarred for life, and if she had been standing in a different part of the camper van, she would have died.

In the explosion she says she has lost everything, including her two cats Beyonce and Jay-Z but luckily her two dogs survived.

A GoFundMe page has now been set up by a friend to help her restore her life and she was discharged from hospital in late January.

She is now raising awareness of the importance of having propane and gas detectors in your home.

LaRisha said: “When it first happened, I was terrified and it scared me to death. But now I have to just figure it out from here. I have to keep going.

“Everyone talks about carbon monoxide detectors but when you use gas, they actually make gas and propane detectors, which I didn’t have.

“So I think getting one of these and keeping up with maintenance, gas fitting and testing them consistently [is vital].

“Having a propane and gas detector would have saved everything. If I ever got a place with gas again I would have one of these detectors in every room.”

You can donate to LaRisha’s GoFundMe page here: https://gofund.me/c32f510f5