Screaming toddler has skin removed after brush with 'UK's most dangerous plant'

Image: Credit: Pen News/Samantha Morgan)

A toddler had to have his skin removed after a chance brush against "Britain's most dangerous plant" which left him screaming in pain and covered with blisters.

Little two-year-old Kayvon Wright developed red spots on his face and hands the morning after walking with his mum near Chard Reservoir in Somerset, England. Initially diagnosed as chickenpox, the spots soon developed into painful blisters, and the tot was rushed to a burns unit. Two days later the real culprit was revealed - Kayvon had touched the dreaded giant hogweed.

Mum Samantha Morgan from Ebbw Vale, Wales, said: "The blisters filled up, and they spread all over his mouth and his face. He had a massive blister on his face and it popped on his cheek, and it was oozing. When we went to the Bristol burns unit they had to remove some skin. I think that was the most horrific thing for me: I will never forget my son's screams as they were taking his skin off him.

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"It was horrendous. It was absolutely horrible. He was really stressed out by that point. He was in so much pain that he was just lethargic, he didn't want to do anything, he was just lying in a hospital bed with bandages on his hands and his legs. Normally he's really active and outgoing, but he was just lying there not doing anything."

Giant hogweed carries a sap that stops the skin protecting itself against the sun's rays, causing gruesome burns when exposed to natural light. It often causes no immediate pain, meaning its victims can continue to burn in the sun without realising there is a problem. And the plant can spread its sap with only a moment's exposure. Miss Morgan, 32, said Kayvon would've "literally just brushed against it". She said: "He was just walking up the pathway that goes up to the reservoir, and obviously he's just grabbing hold of everything that he can, touching plants and flowers. We didn't even know hogweed existed.

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"Then, when he got it on his hands, he's touched his face and spread it around his body. It didn't activate until it was really sunny the following morning. It started off with just some red spots on his hand, some red patches on his skin. It was almost like he had sunburn on his fingers.

"And then it went from that to having little blister spots. At first we thought it could be chickenpox; but they just got bigger from there. He had to go on antibiotics just in case of infections, he had to have drips for fluids, and pain relief. It was quite a lot. I think he was in Bristol burns unit for six or seven days. I think it was mostly second-degree burns, nearly third-degree. It's almost like he'd had a chip pan poured over him, the burn was that severe."

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Kayvon suffered his ordeal in 2019, and now his mum is speaking out to warn other parents before the giant hogweed makes its annual return. The plant flowers in June and July, but burns have been reported earlier in the year too. Miss Morgan said: "Every year I put a post on Facebook about it now and so do my friends, because we like to raise awareness of it as much as we can. None of us even knew it existed before my child got burned with it."

Kayvon, now six, had big red blotches on his skin for eight months after he was burned. But the after effects of giant hogweed exposure would last much longer. "He's only now got his natural protection on his skin back," said his mum. "Before now, even if he goes out in a little sunlight, we've had to put suncream on him because he burns really quickly in those areas where he's had hogweed burns. But now all of a sudden he seems to have developed his own resilience back again."

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Miss Morgan, who now lives in Somerset, urged parents to be vigilant against the plant. She said: "You don't expect to be walking down the street with your child, your child picks a flower and all of a sudden ends up burnt. Children themselves have no awareness of it. I think it's about raising awareness of different plants and how dangerous they can be.

"Don't just let them touch everything." The giant hogweed is native to the Caucasus, but was introduced to Britain as an ornamental plant in 1817, and its spread has now got out of control. It was called "without a shadow of a doubt, the most dangerous plant in Britain" by Mike Duddy, of the Mersey Basin Rivers Trust in 2015.