Family trip to the lake ends in the hospitalHot charcoal carelessly disposed of: two-year-old burns his feet

“Then I just heard my son screaming very loudly”

The mother and her child enjoy Saturday together with friends on May 23rd at Eichbaumsee in Allermöhe. The children play in the water and in the sand. Then suddenly there was shock, says Svenja E., who did not want to give her full name, in an interview with RTL: “One of the boys had thrown a Frisbee towards the bush. And the children wanted to go and get the Frisbee back. And then I just heard my son scream very loudly and I went there immediately.”

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Charcoal in the bushes injures toddler

The 40-year-old mother immediately runs to her screaming child, but at first she can't tell what has happened. “He said, 'My foot, my foot!' And then I kind of looked and asked if he had rolled over. “He was crying quite hard at that point,” remembers the 40-year-old. A friend of Svenja E.'s who rushed to help finally discovered charcoal on the floor, which immediately started smoking again after a small kick. “I just saw it steaming up ever so slightly out of the corner of my eye and then I didn't really look at it, to be honest. I then grabbed my son and then ran to the lake and put my feet in there,” says the mother.

In a nearby toilet room she tries to calm her son and treat the wounds. But the soles of the two-year-old's feet are already showing the first white burn marks. “You could just tell that he was in incredible pain,” remembers Svenja E. A short time later, an ambulance and an emergency doctor rush to help the little, injured boy. It quickly becomes clear: these are second degree burns. “I had him in my arm and you could actually tell that his body was working so hard. It must have been so painful that he really – He wasn't really there anymore. He was already standing a little beside himself and sweating like hell.”

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Two surgeries and several days in the hospital

The toddler is taken to the Wilhelmstift Children's Hospital in Hamburg. Shortly after arriving, the little boy is put under anesthesia and the first operation begins. The skin on the soles of the feet is removed from the injured areas. The two-year-old and his mother were hospitalized for several days. On Monday the doctors operated on the little one a second time.

Mother and child are now back home. The wounds heal well, so no skin transplant is necessary. It is unclear whether scars and emotional damage will remain. “It still looks bad to me, but the doctors think it’s really good,” reports the mother after the last check-up on Wednesday (June 3rd). But the boy still can't walk. “Either he doesn’t dare yet or he can’t,” says Svenja E.

The police are looking for this man

As to the mother's anger, there is still no trace of the people who are presumably responsible for the serious injury to her child. A family had a barbecue near Svenja E. and her friends. While the mother looks after her injured son after the incident, her friends talk to the family who are about to leave. “They had just packed up all their bags and stood there a bit shocked and then said “No.” But it’s so hesitant,” reports Svenja E.

And then the family is gone. Svenja E. then filed a complaint with the Hamburg police for negligent bodily harm against an unknown person. The investigation is ongoing. Since the father of the family barbecuing at the lake also behaved suspiciously in other ways and, according to Svenja E., had an argument with another man, she is hoping for witnesses who can provide information about the father of the family she is looking for. He had tattoos, had dark hair and wore a dark T-shirt. Anyone who can provide information about this should contact the Hamburg police.

Sources used: own RTL research