Freak fire dancing accident leaves beautiful dancer scarred for life

A fire dancer suffered horrific burns in a freak accident when an air conditioning unit blew flames back into her face.

Sophie Lee, 23, from Lancashire, England thought she’d landed her dream job in April 2018 after being booked to perform at a huge event in Chicago.

But her act went disastrously wrong. The air conditioning in the venue was too powerful and blasted a fireball back at her, causing her face and chest to “go up in flames.”

Lee told The Sun: “The air conditioning was too strong so when I blew the fire out it blew back to me. It set me on fire. I just remember being in so much pain, I blacked out for a little bit. It’s crazy.”

“It happened in front of everyone and I had to get on with it as professionally and quickly as I could. As soon as I got into the ambulance, I was in bits.”

Lee spent a month in intensive care in the US by herself, while receiving treatment for the burns.

She said: “That was a scary, scary time. I couldn’t breathe by yourself, I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t really see, it was scary. I was pretty out of it but on day two I looked in the mirror and just cried.”

Lee has been dancing since she was three and had been practicing fire breathing for five years.

She said: “There’s always going to be a worry because it’s a risky job, but I’ve always done everything to the book safety wise. It was a shock, a freak accident. “

After her skin started to heal, Lee was flown back to the UK. She thought she was over the worst of it and kept the true horror of the accident a secret from friends and family.

But then keloid scars started growing on her face and chin. Keloids are benign tumors which grow in areas of trauma and are more common in people with olive or black skin like Lee, who has Chinese heritage.

Lee, who now lives in Manchester, England said: “They developed two months after the accident and they will be with me for life. It’s just a case of taming and getting it flattening with steroid injections or laser.”

“At first the keloids knocked my confidence because I didn’t know what it was. Up until then, the scar was just flat. I thought ‘great, my skin’s healed itself, it’s going to be OK,’ and then all of a sudden the skin started raising, it kept growing and growing.”

Lee, who is in legal talks with the organizers of the event, struggled to accept her scars. She admits her former life was very “vanity based” and she’d often share her day-to-day life with her 33,900 Instagram followers.

But now she’s on a mission to inspire young girls to love their looks. She said: “Dancing’s all about getting dressed up, glitz and glam, I’ve always loved that. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not myself and I know I’ll never be myself again.”

“That’s something I have to accept and it has been hard to accept that – but also without this scar I would be dead. That’s the way I look at it, I don’t look at it as a burden to me.”

Lee says the incident has made her “toughen up and grow a thicker skin.” She said: “I just have to accept myself for me.”

“I think sometimes people stare because they don’t know how to ask. It’s not intentionally rude, I think they’re just curious and don’t know what to say.”

“I never mind if people ask about my scars, then I can educate more people about what happened.”

Lee continues to dance but has left fire breathing firmly in the past. She said: “I want to speak to young girls, really get the message out there that you should love yourself for everything you are.”

“It’s taken me a long time to accept my body, especially with the industry I was in, I was always scrutinized for how I look.”

“But with this accident it’s crazy. Because the one time I feel like I should be most body conscious, I’m probably the happiest I’ve ever been.”

Source: New York Post

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