A mum was forced to fly home early from her 'holiday from hell' after suffering horror burns on giant hogweed - leaving her needing to wear gloves whenever she leaves the house. Lucy Jones was on holiday in Cadiz, Spain, with husband Max Jones, 31, and three-year-old daughter Lily Jones when she noticed a burning sensation on her right hand.
The stay-at-home says her skin erupted in agonising blisters and looked as though her hand 'had been dipped in boiling water'. Horrified, she rushed to a pharmacy where staff dressed it and gave her steroids for contact dermatitis.
But the pain became so severe the family were forced to cut their holiday short by three days and fork out £300 for an earlier flight back to the UK. The 29-year-old mum went to A&E where medics were initially left stumped as to what had caused the blistering burns.
After being transferred to the burns unit a doctor who had seen the symptoms before said she must have come into contact with the toxic plant. There, Lucy had the tops of her blisters scraped off and her hand dressed - a procedure she described as 'painful and traumatising'.
Once her hands have fully healed, Lucy will have to slap on sunscreen three times a day and wear SPF gloves to protect her scorched skin from the sun. Lucy, from Maidstone, Kent, said: "I woke up and my hand was red and sore and it looked like a sunburn.
"I went to a pharmacy because it was getting worse, it was a really horrible burning feeling. Over the next 24 hours it got worse. It was blistering, really swollen and I could barely move my fingers.
"It was so painful. We decided to catch a last-minute flight home and went straight to the hospital from the airport. They had no clue what it was, no one in A&E had seen it before. They treated it as a burn, they took all the blisters off and removed a lot of skin.
"It was painful and traumatising. It was as if my hand had been put in boiling hot water and there were blisters everywhere and some red patches started appearing on my left hand. I went back to A&E for a couple of days to get it dressed. I went to the burns unit and the consultant said he knew what it was because he'd seen it before.
"It completely ruined the holiday. We'd been looking forward to it for ages. My daughter was loving being out there and going in the pool."
Lucy doesn't know if she brushed against the plant in the UK or in Spain but says she suspects she may have inadvertently touched it near her home as her area is known for having a 'hogweed problem'. Lucy said: "People normally get it on their legs because they walk through it. I'm not sure where I touched the plant, in Spain or the UK.
"I can't recall walking through woodland. I was extremely surprised I hadn't heard of it. Since returning, my friend said that our area has a bit of a problem with it. It wouldn't surprise me if I touched it here without knowing then I reacted in Spain."
Touching hogweed causes severe burns and blistering on the skin that lasts for several months. The plant can grow to 10 feet in height and chemicals in its sap can cause photosensitivity.
Lucy said: "When the sap goes on your skin it removes the melatonin which makes you extremely sensitive to light so perhaps when I went to Spain and was out in the sun it reacted. I've got to wear special SPF gloves [when they arrive] when outside until it heals but it isn't healing quickly.
"When it's healed I have to put on high SPF three times per day. It can last up to seven years on your skin. The skin has gone dark where all the dead skin is, it's quite raw where they took the skin off and the top layers are falling off."
WHAT IS GIANT HOGWEED?
Giant hogweed is invasive and potentially harmful.
Chemicals in the sap can cause photodermatitis or photosensitivity, where the skin becomes very sensitive to sunlight and may suffer blistering, pigmentation and long-lasting scars.
