A 9-month-old boy in Phoenix received second-degree burns over 30 percent of his body on Tuesday after being hit by extremely hot spray from a garden hose as his mother tried to fill up a small wading pool.
Dominique Woodger told Phoenix TV station KNXV that she didn’t realize when she turned on the faucet that the water was so hot.
Her son, who was sitting nearby, was hit by the scalding spray, she said.
“I thought he was crying because he was mad … he hates when he gets sprayed in the face,” Woodger said. “I didn’t think that it was burning him.”
Then she saw his skin.
“All of it was peeling. He had blisters all over the right side,” she told the station.
On that particular day the temperature outside was 115 degrees, meaning the water inside a hose left out in the sun could have reached as high as 150 degrees, the station reported.
“At those temperatures, something as short as a 10 or 30-second exposure can result in a second-degree burn,” said Capt. Larry Subervi with the Phoenix Fire Department.
Woodger told the station that her son would be fine and wanted to warn other parents about the danger.
“Just be careful. Touch it before you let your kids near it,” she said.