A teenager suffered horrific second degree burns on her face and leg after being struck by what she fears was an exploding aerosol can at Reading Festival.
Leone Cook was sitting around a festival-permitted campfire with her partner and friends during the final hours of the bank holiday music event before the sudden blast left her in excruciating pain.
The 18-year-old's mum Redd Cook said it's not clear whether someone had thrown a can into the flames or if it had been placed there earlier as a "booby trap".
It comes after video footage showed the event having descended into chaos with tents being set alight - in some cases, allegedly with people still inside - as festivalgoers fled.
Redd, from near Maidstone, Kent, told The Mirror her daughter has been left "traumatised" by the attack.
The furious mum also questioned whether organisers could have done more to control the "chaos" which ensued on Sunday afternoon through to the early hours of last Monday.
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She said Leone's tent was set on fire following the explosion and the front section melted.
Redd described her daughter seeing people making Molotov cocktail-style explosives.
The mum said it appears there was a "war" going on between two camps at the festival, with her daughter and friends having to stop someone stealing their tent peg mallet to "use as a weapon".
Mallets, tent poles and full aerosol cans, as well as bottles filled with urine, were allegedly all being used in "unprovoked" attacks, she said.
"They were targeting anybody and everybody," Redd explained.
"It was chaos, there was fighting, there was missiles being thrown, there was full bottles of liquid being hurled at people.
“There was loads of screaming and...people are wondering what do they do at this time of night?"
Following the explosion at around 1am, Leone is unclear if a security guard refused to call an ambulance or if one was called for - but was not dispatched to the site.
The guard had suggested her friends pour water on her burns, while shouting at the teen that she would be "scarred for life", she claims.
Police are understood to have eventually carried her across to the paramedics' tent around 40 minutes later, Leone told her mum.
"There was a huge crowd, a hundred people around them because she was screaming [due to shock] for such a long time," said Redd.
The first she heard of it was a phone call from Leone at around 2.30am when she tried to explain what had happened, but had been sedated so sounded "away with the fairies".
"I thought bloody hell, someone’s spiked her," said Redd before paramedics then explained she'd been medicated for the pain.
Leone was taken to Berkshire Royal Hospital in Reading, where she was met by her mum who had driven almost three hours to her terrified daughter.
Redd said hospital staff had initially warned her not to make her way there until after after Leone had been treated due to Covid restrictions.
She was then told to come and collect her daughter ASAP and take her to her local A&E who may then refer her to a burns unit.
"You just sort of think 'seriously'," she said.
"When I got there she'd been sick on herself. The burns go right from her ankle to her knicker line, all down one side of her leg, her face, her hands, her hair.
"She is absolutely traumatised by it."
Redd spoke to a young man, aged 19, at the hospital who had had a canister thrown into a fire near him which exploded in his face, breaking the skin around his eye.
"His eye was probably bigger than an orange, it was oozing and purple, and all sorts of colours; he couldn’t open it," she said.
Redd described how he had been given intravenous then told he needed to make his way to his own A&E, which was six hours away in Wales.
"I understand the hospitals have got their own people to deal with, but they got to the stage where the general fallout of the violence and riot at the festival...they couldn’t be bothered," she said.
The angry mum was told the hospital needed the bed being used by Leone, but she claims there appeared to be plenty of spare beds.
She drove her daughter two hours to Maidstone Hospital with staff spending four hours treating her before referring her to a specialist burns clinic around an hour away.
She said staff at A&E said there were "no excuses" and BRH should have transferred her themselves straight to a burns unit as the length of time without treatment mean her injuries are worse.
Redd is now considering getting Leone counselling to help her get over the trauma of the incident.
She said: "In her head she’s thinking 'why did they do this to me?'"
She has tried to explain to her daughter it was just a coincidence you were sitting there and it could have hit anyone.
She added: "It wasn’t someone has attacked her personally but in her head she feels that it was targeted at her and no matter what I say I can’t explain it.
"She keeps saying 'Why did someone do it? Why did they do it? What’s it going to look like?'"
Leone must now attend the burns clinic twice a week and doctors have said her burns will take a month before they start healing.
Recovery could then take up to a year.
Doctors have said the facial burns, including to the nostrils, are superficial and should fully heal and they hope there is no scarring on her leg which is currently fully bandaged.
However, Redd said doctors told her daughter her skin was so badly damaged that she can never sunbathe and must wear factor 50 sun cream every day.
Leone has a place at Portsmouth University but has decided to defer her start until next year.
Referring to the festival, Redd said the organisers need to be "held to account" and properly trained security measures must be in place going forward for their safety as well as paying attendees.
Leone had seen a guard being treated after allegedly being punched in the face.
She said: "The things that were going on that night, apparently it all started at 4 o’clock that afternoon [on Sunday].
"[Leone] said even during the daytime the security guards are just volunteers told to walk around and look like authority, but they weren’t doing anything. It was way out of their control.
"They weren’t prepared to stop it, there is no way they could."
She went on to say: "When you read some of the reports it just touches the surface, that there was violence, there was fires, and you sort of think that probably happens every year.
"But the level and the incidents, they need to be put out there, they need to be held responsible.
"It’s not just a punch up, it’s not just a few drugs…if you are sitting there and missiles are being thrown at you and explosions are being made, and the security are not doing anything about it....
"As a festival goer you pay your money and you’re left vulnerable."
A spokesperson for event organisers Festival Republic said: “We are in in touch with the family involved in this reported incident and are working with all authorities and medical services whilst we investigate this.”
In a previous statement by Thames Valley Police on September 1, the force said around 110,000 people arrived in Reading for the festival.
Chief Superintendent Michael Loebenberg, Strategic Commander for the policing operation, said over the four days, 37 arrests were made for offences including assault, drug supply, criminal damage and public order and 152 crimes were reported, as of August 31.
The Mirror has contacted Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust for comment.
