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A 17-year-old boy from Virginia recovers after a giant hogweed plant left second- and third-degree burns on his face and arms.
Alex Childress was working at his summer landscaping job on Tuesday at Fredericksburg around 12 pm when he unconsciously felled a large hogweed, a dangerous plant with sap that can cause serious damage to the skin, according to the New York Department of Environmental Conservation.
Childress, of Spotsylvania County, says that the plant fell on his face, but he did not think about the incident and took the grass cut under his right arm to throw it. However, that night, Childress said that he knew something was wrong when he was taking a shower.
"I thought I had just had a sunburn, so I did not really pay attention to it. Then I took a shower and started rubbing my face, "he recalls. "I thought it was just a little skin at first, but then big pieces of my face were falling off."
He showed his mother, a nurse at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, and she showed Childress a picture of an Hogweed, asking if she had looked like the plant that he shot. Childress confirmed it, and his mother, Christy, transported him to the Spotsylvania Regional Medical Center, where the doctors advised him to go to the VCU Burn Center
"It smelled like wind, like my skin was chapped". "[Doctors] did me stay in the shower for an hour and a half, rubbing my body with soap to lower the pH." I had hot water on the open wounds, c & # 39; Was probably the worst, that or the burn treatment where they scraped the dead skin. "
The noxious weed appeared first in the United States in 1917, according to TIME ]. When it is mixed with moisture and sunlight, its sap can cause severe irritation to the skin and eyes, including blindness, permanent scarring and painful blisters, according to the Department
"I have to change the bandages every day," he says. "It's painful. Every time I remove the dressing, there is drainage. My arm is bleeding because the skin is trying to heal. That's more than half of my face and my wrist up to the top of my bicep on my right arm. "
He adds," I can not go to the sun for two to six months. My face could be sensitive to light for a year up to two years. "
Childress says that the test has put his life on hold.He says his Virginia Tech Army ROTC Scholarship is now in danger due to medical disqualifications. His family started a GoFundMe page to cover medical costs and cover college costs.
"I've worked hard to get the scholarship," he says. "When my face heals, I have to go through a medical waiver process to ensure that they will not shoot my purse. It's a possibility I can not [attend in the fall] so it was a real struggle for my family. "
Yet, Childress has hope for his future, and says that he is talking about the ordeal to warn others of the pest.
" I do not want to start over . I would like to bring awareness to everyone so that it does not happen to other people. "
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Tags burns caused Giant hogweed Seventeenyearolds suffer thirddegree
