Pregnant mum left with huge pus-filled blister after severe sunburn scorched her leg

A MUM was left with a pus-filled orange blister the size of a snooker ball after getting severely sunburnt on a family trip to the beach.

Colette Hawker didn’t wear sunscreen during the three hour trip to Devon because she couldn’t feel herself getting burnt, despite slathering SPF 50 sunscreen on her daughters Skye, six, and three-year-old Cheyanne.

The following day, seven-month pregnant Colette noticed a 50p-sized sac of pus bubbling up on her scorched lower leg, which ballooned into a snooker ball-sized blob.

After a trip to A&E and the minor injuries unit Colette, 21, had the huge blister on her left leg drained and is now urging people to always wear sunscreen.

Colette from Plymouth, Devon, said: “I’ve never used sun cream. Normally at the most my shoulders will go a little bit red and peel and that’s it.

“After a couple of hours on the beach my partner Thomas said I looked really red but I couldn’t see it because I had my sunglasses on.

“I couldn’t feel it because there was a bit of wind so I didn’t feel myself burning at all.

“When I got home I looked in the mirror and then I could see how red I was all up my legs.

“I was wearing a long dress which had pulled up a little bit, which is where the sun caught me.

“As the evening went on my leg was getting tighter and tighter and it felt like I had pins and needles going through them.

“It started really hurting and I was crying in pain.

“I went and had a cool shower and then had a cool bath but the pain was terrible.”

Colette smothered the burn in after-sun and tried to sleep on top of the covers when she went to bed, but the following morning her foot and ankle were swollen and painful to touch.

The full-time mum wore leggings the following day to cover her sunburn and says she saw a lump bubble from underneath her clothing.

“When I got home from being out a family BBQ I saw something raised up in my leggings, I thought something had got in there,” she recalled.

“I didn’t know what it was so I touched my leg – when I did that it really hurt and I screamed the flat down.

“The blister started out the size of a 50p piece, I just freaked out.

“Then it just got bigger and bigger before my eyes, I’ve never seen anything like it.

“It had all this orange and yellowy green gunk inside, it made me feel physically sick looking at it.”

After speaking to Thomas’ mum and researching online Colette knew it needed to be popped but feared getting an infection.

After calling 111, gardener Thomas Keating, 23, took Colette to Derriford Hospital’s A&E department where she was advised to make an appointment at the Cumberland Centre’s minor injuries unit to get it drained.

Doctors had to cut into the blister to drain the fluid inside.

The dead blistered skin was then cut away, the wound was dressed in bandages and Colette had to finish a seven-day course of antibiotics to treat the infection.

“The nurse said it was a pretty severe burn. They had to use lots of what looked like kitchen towel to stop the gunge from inside the blister going everywhere,” Colette said.

“I was crying my eyes out when they used the needle to try and pop it – it was so painful I almost passed out.

“I changed the dressings daily and now, a month on, my skin’s a bit of a different colour to the rest of my leg and is still pretty sensitive.”

“I really regret going out in the sun without sun cream on, I put it on all the time now.”

Getting sun burnt greatly increases you risk of skin cancer.

Skin cancer is one of the most common cancers in the world.

It occurs when damage is caused to the skin cells, most often by UV light from the sun or tanning beds.

UVA and UVB rays are the two main UV rays emitted by the sun.

UVA rays account for up to 95 per cent of UV radiation reaching the Earth’s surface, according to the Skin Cancer Foundation.

UVA penetrates the inner layer of the skin, called the dermis, and UVB mainly affects the outer layer of the skin, called the epidermis.

This damage can trigger mutations, or genetic defects, that lead the skin cells to multiply rapidly and form malignant tumours.

We pay for your stories! Do you have a story for The Sun Online news team? Email us at tips@the-sun.co.uk or call 0207 782 4368. You can WhatsApp us on 07810 791 502. We pay for videos too. Click here to upload yours