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A salon owner was "traumatised" when she "burned off" her half-sleeve tattoo in a roast dinner disaster.

Amber Bowles was cooking a roast gammon with all the trimmings when she spilled boiling hot water down her tattoo-covered right arm.

The 27-year-old suffered nerve damage and third degree burns that caused 4×3-inch blister patches to bubble up on her arm.

Amber's horrified partner, 28-year-old salesman Zack Brown, rushed her to A&E.

Doctors saw to the injury, popping and scraping the blisters before applying antibacterial cream and burns dressings.

Amber, who is mum to two-and-a-half-year-old Vienna Brown, said: "In the last year I've been really trying to nail the roast dinners.

"I was doing roast potatoes. I peeled all the potatoes, put them in a big silver pot to boil with salt and a bit of oil before I put them in the oven.

"I went to pick the big pot up but the handles were too hot so I grabbed a tea towel and picked the pot up. It contained water that had been boiling for about 20 minutes.

"The tea towel then got caught and the whole of the pot went all over my right arm, hand, thumb and wrist.

"I just remember this excruciating pain. I don't know how I even managed it but I managed to put the pot back down and then screamed for my partner and my mum.

"I got to the tap as quickly as I could and I put it under the cold water tap.

"I've given birth [was in labour] for 40 hours and that wasn't even on par with that. It felt like my arm was on fire. As soon as I saw my arm under the cold water tap my skin was just peeling off and that's when I knew it was bad.

"My whole body went into shock and I was just screaming. Zack came down, he was just as shocked as I was.

"I had it under the water for 20 minutes and then he rushed me to hospital." Zack drove Amber to James Paget Hospital's A&E department in Great Yarmouth where doctors soaked her arm in cool water before scraping off the blisters, applying antibacterial cream and dressings.

"Once I got to hospital that's when I started to get blisters, there were about eight or nine and they were big – some were the size of a £2 coin.

"I thought it was best to leave them but they popped them and then peeled all the skin back, which was awful. It was absolutely agonising.

"I was there for about an hour, they were pretty quick and were really good. I went back the next day and then I then had to go to burns specialists at Broomfield Hospital in Essex.

"They were going to have to do a skin graft and take it off my leg but my body then started healing on the last visit and they were quite happy with it."

Amber was unable to work over the Christmas period as she recuperated from the severe injury.

The business owner, from Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, said: "The accident has burned the tattoo off. I've got a woman's face and a big flower.

"Half her head is missing and then half of the flower and all the leaves has gone as well.

"The doctors didn't think it would go that deep to take the tattoo off, they thought the tattoo would come back, but the burn went quite deep so it took all of the ink out of the skin.

"It went that deep it damaged all my nerve endings too. I was really traumatised by it.

"I'd bought a salon in August and renovated the lot. The busiest time of the year is Christmas but I couldn't work because of what happened."

While the recovery was grisly, Amber thankfully didn't need a skin graft.

Now, four months on from her ordeal in November, the mum added: "It wasn't very nice losing my tattoo but because they thought I was going to have to have a skin graft I was trying to look at things positively.

"I'm glad it's taken half of my tattoo off rather than burn my face or my daughter. "I couldn't believe I'd done it, I still can't. After I did it I didn't cook for a while, I didn't go near a hob.

"Now I'm ok but I'm very wary. Before I burned myself I'd be doing multiple things at once and rushing. Now I do not rush, I take my time and make sure my little girl's not there just in case.

"My advice to people is to be more wary when in the kitchen."

• Tattoos

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