The victim of a bonfire explosion caused by an aerosol can has described the burn injuries she suffered as "the worst pain I have ever experienced in my life".
"I have nightmares that they wouldn't be able to save the skin on my face. That haunts me every day," she said in a victim impact statement.
Benjamin Francis Crutchett, 35, faced the ACT Supreme Court on Wednesday after pleading guilty to two counts of recklessly inflicting grievous bodily harm.
The incident in question occurred about 11.30pm on August 6, 2022, at a social gathering in Isabella Plains.
When the brake drum potbelly fire the attendees were sitting around began to die down, Crutchett tried to reignite it with a can of aerosol accelerant.
With that failing, the man threw the can onto the fire.
After about a minute of nothing occurring, two women returned to the fire where they had been previously sitting, between one and one-and-a-half metres away from the drum.
"Don't sit there, it hasn't gone off," Crutchett told the victims just before the aerosol can exploded.
"Flames shot up from the fire to a height of about one metre above the fire," court documents state.
The flames moved outwards and covered the women.
Both Crutchett and another attendee helped smother the women's ignited clothing before the victims were put in a shower.
Crutchett then hid in the home's pantry after an argument broke out.
One of the two victims said the incident caused her "horrendous" pain and had left her living with fear and social anxiety.
"My face has changed and I have scars that will never go away," she said.
"If someone has an open fire in their home, I get scared.
"This whole experience has changed who I am ... I don't trust people."
The woman also said she was unable to leave her home for nine weeks to ensure her skin grafts could heal properly.
Justice Chrissa Loukas-Karlsson acknowledged the women's distress.
"Clearly, the victims have suffered enormously," the judge said on Wednesday.
Prosecutor Sam Bargwanna said the "unique" and "alcohol-fueled" offending had left the man's two friends requiring "extensive" medical treatment.
Both victims spent a week in hospital, with one suffering burns to the face, ear, chest, hand and forearm, covering 6 per cent of her body surface.
The other suffered less serious burns to the face, ear and neck, covering two per cent of her body surface.
The two women were treated by a number of specialist teams at both Canberra Hospital and the Concord Repatriation General Hospital, including ear, nose and throat surgeons, trauma specialists and plastic surgeons.
Court documents state that after being arrested the following day, the man admitted to police having placed the aerosol can into the fire but said "the whole party was the blame" due to the intoxication of attendees.
He also claimed no one had explicitly told him not to do it.
Defence barrister James Sabharwal conceded the event had been "traumatic" but said his client's actions were unplanned and that he had given the victims some warning the aerosol can could blow up.
Mr Sabharwal also said the man had been "somewhat fragile" after a workplace assault and was using alcohol to "dull the pain".
"He has to live with the consequences of what he did," he said.
The barrister asked the judge to hand his client a suspended jail sentence with community service.
The court heard Crutchett had been engaging and working with St Vincent de Paul for the past six weeks.
Justice Loukas-Karlsson said the offender's extensive efforts to rehabilitate himself since the day of the explosion were to his credit.
"But of course, as I've said, this has been entirely devastating for the victims," she said.
"You must never forget that."
Crutchett, who has spent one day in custody relating to the offences, is set to return to court for a decision hand-down next month.
