Teenage girl suffers burns in tanning salon

Glamorgan, February 20: A visit to the tanning salon turned out to be a disaster for the 14-year old girl Kirsty who suffered 70 percent burns on her body.

All this could have been avoided had the salon had capable staff. Now a health and safety investigation has been launched to look into the matter.

This Monday, Kirsty McRae, first put £4 in a coin operated sun bed at Lextan salon. But after the procedure, she felt she was not tanned enough. So she put £3 for another 15 minutes.

There was no one present in the salon to stop her from using the sun bed for so long. Kirsty’s mother Jill said that unstaffed salons are very dangerous to use.

However, Lextan owner James Hadley said that she did not violate any law.

After the girl left the salon, in pain, she was taken to a hospital where doctors declared that she had suffered first degree burns. It is the least level of skin burn.

Doctors then put her on a drip and gave her oxygen. Meanwhile, doctors rehydrated her and gave painkillers.

Though Kirsty has been discharged from the hospital, she has to apply lotions every few hours in order to soothe the burns.

She accepted her fault and said that she should not have entered the salon since she was under the age of 16.

Kirsty said, “It is something I don’t think I’ll ever forget about how scared I was and how I didn’t realise just going on a tanning bed could result in going to hospital and being quite ill.”

But she did stress that there should be more strictness and check on as to who is using the salon. “Teenagers are going to push the boundaries. They are going to do things they should not do.”

Kirsty’s mother also agreed that her daughter was responsible for the condition to some extent. Mrs. McRae said, “If Kirsty had collapsed in the salon and no-one knew that she was there, that does not bear thinking about.”

The Vale of Glamorgan council expressed its concern over the incident and said the investigative proceedings are on. Principal environmental Health Officer Rowan Hughes said, “The council is extremely concerned about unmanned tanning salons but there is no current legislation in Wales relating to such premises.”