Last updated at 11:45, Thursday, 12 July 2012

THE WHITEHAVEN mother of a six-year-old girl who set her own hair on fire has spoken about her terrifying ordeal.

Alison McAlone, 49, said she keeps having flashbacks reliving the horrifying moment when daughter Gracie came running past her with flames shooting up her back.

The youngster had been playing with a lighter in the kitchen of their Buttermere Avenue home in Woodhouse, Whitehaven on Monday afternoon when a tea-towel and curtains set alight.

Mrs McAlone said: “I was sitting in the living room next to the kitchen and I looked round and the curtains were on fire and Gracie was on fire. She just ran past me and I saw flames – I couldn’t believe my eyes.

“There were flames coming up her back and Gracie was hysterical. I just pulled her jumper off and put it out with my bare hands. Gracie was attempting to run out of the house. It all happened in a matter of seconds and frightened the living daylights out of her.”

Mrs McAlone and her other daughter managed to put out the fire on Gracie’s back and get the family outside to safety.

“I just hit the flames with my bare hands. I didn’t think of my own hand. I could feel it burning, but I just had to put it out on my daughter’s hair.”

Gracie and her mum were taken by ambulance to the West Cumberland Hospital where they spent five hours being treated.

Mrs McAlone has a large bandage on her burnt and blistered hand and Gracie suffered injuries to both her hands and the back of her neck. Big lumps of Gracie’s singed hair have been falling out since the ordeal and on close inspection, Mrs McAlone said that the flames came within half-an-inch of her scalp.

“She has been very lucky,” said Mrs McAlone. “I keep thinking what if I wasn’t sitting in the living room and was in the front garden or the bath. I don’t even want to think about what could have happened.”

First published at 11:10, Thursday, 12 July 2012
Published by http://www.whitehavennews.co.uk