4-year-old girl suffers burn from boiling hot drink on flight; mum blames tray, netizens blame mum

A woman showed photos of her 4-year-old daughter’s burns after boiling hot tea spilt on the child’s legs. Writing to crowdsourced news site Stomp, she warned parents to take care as this might happen to their child.

The mum appeared to feel that the meal tray had been poorly designed, as it made it “easy” for spills to occur. And although netizens were sympathetic because of the accident, they seemed to feel that the mum was at least partly responsible.

The mother, referred to as Lim in the story, told Stomp that they were en route from Doha to Singapore on April 28, at around 5am, when the tea spilt.

She had asked the flight attendant for tea, and when she sat up, she accidentally hit the bottom part of the tray table, which caused the tea to spill on her sleeping daughter.

“Both her legs were severely burned by the hot tea and she cried for an hour. The flight attendant gave us a first-aid kit with bandages and burn cream to attend to our daughter ourselves,” she told Stomp.

Clearly dissatisfied with the tray’s design, she added, “It doesn’t make sense to put the cup holder on the bottom right of the tray, especially when the tray is designed in a manner that allows it to be folded in half. It’s very easy to spill your drink and dangerous for everyone who requests for hot beverages.”

She even sent Stomp photos of tray tables from other Qatar flights, which show the cup holder located on the top right-hand side of the tray.

Once they reached Changi Airport, the daughter was attended to at Raffles Clinic.

Commenters on Stomp’s Facebook page underlined how important it is to be careful when travelling with children, especially when handling hot drinks.

Others suggested that people with children can fly business class, as there is more space.

One netizen asked the mum to “learn from her terrible mistake.”

One mum, whose son had been similarly scalded years ago, recommended applying toothpaste for such burns.

/TISG

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