100 Mile House girl recovering in hospital after science project explosion | iNFOnews | Thompson-Okanagan's News Source
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100 Mile House girl recovering in hospital after science project explosion

Presley Peterson is recovering at B.C. Children's Hospital after a science project went wrong, causing an explosion and leaving her with burns all over her body.
Image Credit: SUBMITTED/GoFundMe

100 MILE HOUSE - A science project gone wrong has landed an 11-year-old girl from 100 Mile House in hospital, with severe burns all over her body.

Karen Peterson says her daughter Presley has been at Vancouver Children's Hospital since last Monday, June 18, after an at-home science project involving gunpowder went airborne and caused an explosion. Peterson didn't want to go into details about the accident, stressing it in no way was the school's fault.

"She’s been in an explosion, so she's burned from her face to just below her knees," Peterson says. “It's excruciating and painful.”

Presley is going to need skin grafts on her arms, but Peterson says Presley is lucky she was wearing her glasses during the accident, because if not, she could have gone blind. Every Monday and Thursday, Presley gets put under anaesthesia and is given a burn bath, where she's cleaned and has old skin scraped off.

The process takes roughly four hours.

“It's pretty horrific to watch your child be in pain that you can't take away," Peterson says. "She can’t eat, it’s just a living nightmare.”

Peterson says burns are one of the most excruciating types of pain, especially for children, comparing it to solitary confinement where you can't do anything but open and close your eyes.

"And if you can't get on top of mental torture, you lose it."

Presley is able to talk, but her ears were badly burned and she can't use her fingers because they're still bandaged. Peterson has been spending her time trying to find ways to distract Presley, whether it is meditation tapes, music, or cards and letters from their community and family friends.

Doctors and nurses have been amazing, Peterson says, and they're monitoring to make sure Presley doesn't get an infection from her burns.

“It's just a rollercoaster, one that I wish I wasn’t on," Peterson says. “I'd trade places with her in a second, and I think thousands of people in our community would trade places with her in a second.”

There's no timeline yet on when Presley will be discharged from the hospital. Peterson says kids with similar injuries have spent anywhere from two to four months in hospital, but once she is discharged, she will be sent to a nearby burn house so that she can still attend the hospital twice per week for burn baths and dressing changes.

Peterson owns a yoga studio in 100 Mile House, and says her fellow instructors and students have been extremely understanding and supportive during this trying time for her and her daughter. She's also found strength through her twin sister who lives nearby, and her parents who live in Chilliwack.

One of the major priorities for Peterson in this is making sure she keeps up her sobriety. She's been clean and sober for five years, and says the Alcoholics Anonymous fellowship in Vancouver has been bringing meetings to her. The organization has also made donations to the family including on their GoFundMe page.

"We’re so grateful to the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous," Peterson says. "I’m self-employed, I don’t get a pay check, I don’t get medical leave, the fact that people have done this for us to lift the financial burden… I’d lose everything I’ve worked so hard for."

Long-term care Presley will need includes trauma therapy, physiotherapy and hyperbaric oxygen treatments.

"We’re absolutely and completely in gratitude for every single person," Peterson says. "I'm just super proud to call 100 Mile House our home, we’re so blessed by the community there."


To contact a reporter for this story, email Ashley Legassic or call 250-319-7494 or email the editor. You can also submit photos, videos or news tips to the newsroom and be entered to win a monthly prize draw.

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