A South Carolina woman lost her hand after a freak accident with a hair dryer left her with severe burns.
Mary Wilson was drying her hair in her bathroom before bedtime last month when her life would be changed forever.
She suddenly passed out, and the hair dryer that was still running scorched her hand as she lay on top of it.
“But it’s blowing that hot air. The burns on my hand were third degree burns, they were all the way to the bone,” Wilson said.
Wilson thinks a shock from the hair dryer is what caused her to pass out.
Her partner found her lying on the floor about 20 minutes later.
Wilson was rushed to the hospital, where doctors found nerve damage so severe that they had to amputate her hand and wrist.
“It really kind of puts in perspective all the other issues that I was dealing with in my life six months ago are so insignificant to things that I’m having to go through now, or challenges that I’m going to have to be going through in the future,” she said.
Wilson said blow dryers should have an automatic shut off, like other hot hair tools.
“You see it with hair straighteners and flat irons. They do have that ceramic plate, that once it gets to a certain temperature, it turns off. If [the blow dryer] did, then maybe my injuries wouldn’t have been so bad,” she said.
Wilson was a dog groomer before the accident and says she misses her job working with dogs every day. She’s not sure if she’ll ever be able to go back, but she’s choosing to stay positive.
“I’m still going to live my life to the fullest. It’s just a hand. What is this, 10% of my body? Losing my hand may be something that changes who I am, but that doesn’t mean that it defines me on everything,” Wilson said.
She’s now looking forward to getting a prosthetic hand.
