The family of a baby girl who suffered horrendous burns in a house fire have appealed for the public’s help in locating a specific type of soother that relieves her pain.
Speaking to RTE’s Liveline, Liam Soffe explained that his daughter Elizabeth formed an attachment to this Boots brand soother, which was discontinued in 2008.
The Dublin dad-of-four told Joe Duffy that the shape of the soother “seems to relieve the tightness of the skin grafts on her face”.
Mr Soffe revealed that Elizabeth’s burns are the result of a horrific accident that occurred when the family lived in Doha, Quatar. Elizabeth and her brother William were sleeping their room when some bad wiring sparked a fire in an air conditioning unit.
He told Liveline: “My wife just put her down for a nap and heard her crying on the baby monitor… When she went upstairs, there was smoke coming out of the door…the room was on fire, the cot was on fire, the baby was on fire…”
“She grabbed our son William – who was two at the time – and treated them with water as best she could and managed to call an ambulance,”
Her injuries are severe and include extensive full thickness burns over her body, arms, legs, head and face. She also lost most of her fingers, an ear, her nose and her hair and doctors have concerns about her eyesight. Elizabeth spent a number of months in ICU and is currently being treated in a specialist burns unit in Birmingham.
The soother is key in helping her cope with the many operations and skin grafts she will need in the future.
“We’ve been to every Boots store we could find.” said the desperate dad. “People from all over the world have sent soothers… we have tried the manufacturer but they said we had to go through the supplier as they couldn’t deal with customers directly.”
Do you know where the Soffe family can find this soother for Elizabeth? Contact them here.
