In 2010, Alexandra Worthington, 18, was a playing game of ‘igniting alcohol’ with her 14 and 16-year-old relatives when an explosion occurred and she was engulfed in a “hot, orange light”. Her face and eyelids “melted off” and her hair was burnt.
She had over 20 surgeries including skin grafts and the skin- and some flesh- was sourced from dead bodies. After the explosion, she went into a coma at the hospital and woke up days later with a tube down her throat.
The doctors gave her weeks to naturally recover before they brought her out of the coma and explain what had happened to her body.
Mirror UK reports that she has undergone more than 20 operations including skin grafts on her elbows, legs, thighs, back, arms and stomach- all replaced using skin and flesh from her legs of from dead bodies.
“I have no idea who the donor is because I just woke up and it as on me. At first it was weird because I had different skin tones but my body did not reject it and I stopped thinking about it unless someone asked,” said Worthington who is now a burns counsellor.
She admitted to gotten depressed and entertaining suicide thoughts because her neighbors would point at her and laugh as well as personally feeling like a monster.
“I’m in a good place now. I still feel self conscious but I think of my scars as interesting than hideous. I use my experience to counsell other burns survivors because I was a stupid kid being bad when I got burned,” added Worthington.