An 82-year-old mother was left with severe burns down to “the muscle and the bone” after she fell asleep in a metal chair by a pool while tanning, according to her daughter.
Betty Lou Summer was at the Johnson Ranch community pool in San Tan Valley on June 11 when an hour in the Arizona sun turned into a life-threatening emergency after she fell asleep.
Bystanders found her unconscious, suffering from a severe heat stroke and covered in third-degree burns.
“The whole front of her body, all the way down to basically the muscle and the bone, is burned. And it’s significant,” Summer’s daughter, Michelle Gabbert, told AZ Family.
Summer was covered in wet towels and moved into the shade before paramedics rushed her to the Valleywise Burn Center, where doctors also diagnosed her with liver and kidney damage and severe shock.
The burns covered approximately 30% of her body and did not just come from the sun, but any parts of her body touching the metal chair.
“Her pinky tip, which was touching the metal chair, was completely, the whole tip of it was gone. Anywhere that touched the metal on the chair completely just fried,” Gabbert told ABC 15.
Summer, who had just recently retired, was put on a ventilator and dialysis and has already undergone several surgeries to remove the burnt and dead skin.
“We weren’t sure she was gonna make it through the night,” Gabbert, who was out of the country at the time, said.
Summer is expected to be in the hospital’s burn unit for at least another month and will undergo multiple skin grafts once her tissue is healthy enough.
Gabbert, a physician, said her mother’s age contributed to her injuries and difficult recovery, as older people have thinner skin, less fat below the skin, slower healing and difficulty regulating body temperature, ABC 15 reported.
Gabbert is sharing her mother’s story to bring awareness about the dangers of sun exposure, and urged people going outside to take proper precautions like wearing sunscreen, protective clothing and staying hydrated.
“I would have never in a million years imagined one of my family members having to go through this,” Gabbert told AZ Family.
“The heat is no joke.”
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