I was left with burns when I used my blender to make pasta sauce

Like many home cooks, Cecily Beer would reach for her blender to whip up smoothies, sauces or milkshakes without a moment’s thought.

But the 35-year-old may be left with permanent facial scarring after suffering a horrific accident while making pasta sauce with her NutriBullet blender two months ago.

The blender’s lid flew off, she says, covering her face and neck in molten hot liquid and causing severe burns – and she might now need a skin graft, affecting her ability to work as a professional harpist.

‘I was making a pasta sauce for my husband and friend, not doing anything risky, when it just exploded,’ recalls Cecily. ‘I screamed out in pain.’

Her husband, trained in first aid, immediately applied wet paper towels to Cecily’s face and neck.

Seeing how badly she was burned, he then got her to stand under a lukewarm shower for 15 minutes before taking her to A&E.

In the US at least 24 people have filed lawsuits against the manufacturer of NutriBullet, alleging the device caused burns, lacerations, severe nerve damage and other injuries due to technical faults.

In one case, a woman claimed her blender exploded and caused injury (but the court determined there was insufficient evidence). Another ongoing lawsuit involves a woman who suffered second-degree burns on her chest and first-degree burns on her arms.

In Cecily’s case, it later transpired she had put too much boiling liquid in her blender and the pressure had built, causing the accident.

Nutribullet stress that only certain models in their range can be used to blend hot food.

Cecily was making a recipe she’d done ‘many times before’ when she had her accident.

‘I’d roasted the veg first, added some stock and was whizzing it to be smooth for three minutes in my NutriBullet,’ she says.

When the sauce was smooth, she removed the upside-down ‘cup’ from the motor, then began to remove the lid. But it ‘seemed to explode’, she says, and the lid flew off – throwing hot pasta sauce over her face, including her left eye and neck.

‘Now my face is shocking to look at,’ says Cecily. ‘I could have even lost my eye if the burn had been a centimetre closer.’

At A&E, doctors put her on an intravenous morphine drip to help control her pain before cleaning and treating her burns.

After consulting experts at the specialist burns unit at another hospital, the A&E doctors allowed her home that night with morphine tablets and ointments to apply to keep the skin clean, hydrated and bacteria-free.

‘But by now the wounds were weeping and oozing,’ says Cecily, from Camberley, Surrey. ‘I was in agony even on the morphine.’

Her left eye had also swollen closed entirely, while her lips were too puffy to drink water without a straw.

Household burns and scalds involving hot drinks and hot-water bottles are particularly common at this time of year, says Daniel Markeson, a consultant plastic surgeon at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital.

And some parts of the body are more vulnerable, he adds.

‘Skin is thinner in extremes of age [i.e. children and the elderly] and so the same burn will lead to a more severe injury in these populations, particularly if the burn occurs to a body area with thinner skin – such as the top of the hand or the inner thigh – rather than our backs or soles of the feet, for instance, where the skin is much thicker,’ he explains.

Perhaps surprisingly, facial skin isn’t as delicate, adds Dr Emma Wedgeworth, a consultant dermatologist in London and a British Skin Foundation spokesperson.

But, while the skin on the face isn’t more susceptible to burns, ‘facial burns are often considered more severe than those on certain other areas of the body due to their potential impact on vision, hearing and smell – as well as the potential psychological aspects of any scarring on the face’, she says.

Burns used to be graded as first-, second- or third-degree depending on their depth. And though depth is still the metric, severity is now classified from superficial partial thickness to deep partial thickness. For the most severe, it is deep dermal or full thickness.

Superficial partial thickness burns occur after brief contact with heat. Followed by immediate first aid, they can heal quickly (often within seven days) and without long-term scarring.

But burns that initially appear superficial can become deeper if first aid is inadequate or if they are not properly cleaned and become infected.

With deeper burns, healing depends on the amount of remaining viable skin.

‘Less severe, deep partial thickness burns sometimes have enough remaining viable skin to heal from within and are more likely to do so in areas where there are many glands or hair follicles, such as the face,’ explains Mr Markeson.

‘That’s because stem cells [master cells that can turn into different types of cells as needed] around these structures produce new skin cells,’ he adds.

‘Generally speaking, a deep dermal or full thickness burn cannot heal from within and can only heal from unburned skin growing from the edges.’

This often results in worse scarring.

‘Infections are more common in deeper burns or in areas where hygiene is less easy to control, such as around the mouth or groin,’ adds Mr Markeson.

Burn specialists normally recommend surgery if the burn is so deep it’s likely to take more than three weeks to heal. Evidence shows that hypertrophic (abnormal) scarring is more likely after this time.

This involves removing the damaged skin (usually under general anaesthetic) and applying a thin shaving from another part of the patient’s body.

At a check-up a few days after her accident, Cecily’s GP said her wounds were showing signs of infection and she was given strong antibiotics, then sent to the Chelsea and Westminster burns unit.

There, it was confirmed she had a number of partial thickness burns as well as a couple of full thickness burns, some of which needed specialist care.

‘They also said the wound under my eye was bad and I may need a skin graft in time,’ says Cecily. ‘I was in shock that something as innocuous as a pasta sauce could do this to me.’

As a freelance professional musician, she also worried about her livelihood.

‘Looks are an important part of my job as I perform at five-star hotels and high-profile events. I worried about my future,’ she explains. Fortunately, one hotel offered her sick pay and she also took time off to heal.

A bandage wrapped around the deep neck wounds helped hide some damage, enabling her to perform three weeks after the accident.

‘I felt very self-conscious and had to wear a scarf over my bandage and couldn’t wear full make-up because my wounds were still oozing and sore, but it went OK and I was glad to be back playing.

‘I was just so grateful to the burns unit but also to my husband for knowing such good first aid.’

Eight weeks after the accident, Cecily is working while waiting to learn if she will need a skin graft for the deeper wounds and laser therapy for the scarring, which will entail more time off.

‘If I could turn back time I’d use a handheld stick blender,’ she says. ‘I would never put hot liquid in a blender again.’

A NutriBullet spokesman said: ‘Our instructions clearly state that users must never put hot liquids in any of the blending vessels before blending. They highlight that like all non-vented blenders, using heated ingredients can create internal pressure in a sealed blending vessel, which may erupt on opening and cause thermal injury.

‘There are models in our NutriBullet range that have vented vessels designed to be suitable for hot ingredients. We are sorry that the customer in this case had this experience.’

– instagram.com/cecily.harpist