A mother-of-two says her sons’ sunburn wrecked their holiday to Gran Canaria and left them in so much pain she needs to warn others of the dangers of not using a recognised sun cream brand. Carlien Pretorius from Rogerstone in Newport had been in Gran Canaria for hours with her boys Joshua, 11, and Luke, nine, last week when she noticed both of them had started to burn.
Despite applying SPF (sun protection factor) 50 and wearing T-shirts, Carlien said Joshua’s burns became so bad that she decided to take photos and post them on social media. Carlien said she used sun cream they’d bought from a shop labelled "parafarmacia" on the island.
After the burns became so bad she says she took her sons back to the same shop where they gave her an ointment to put on the skin, spending a total of €110. “It made it way worse which then led to us going to the public doctor’s surgery where they gave us wonderful free advice,” she said.
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The picture shared by Carlien below shows Joshua’s skin today, almost a week after the initial burn. “When the skin is wet you can see how very thin it still is and how far it still has to go for complete healing,” she explained.
“The boys burnt from just being in the swimming pool despite having full 50+ sunscreen on and T-shirts. The sun cream I bought was from the pharmacy. Shocking really. I believe there must be something wrong with it, maybe it’s out of date, or it could be the wrong sun cream for their ages.
“Both of them were in a lot of pain and I had to give them Calpol regularly which I thankfully had brought with me from the UK. Joshua especially was in absolute agony.
“I was really worried, I secretly cried with worry while they were sleeping. I am still worried it will cause permanent scarring.” To stay updated with Newport news visit our Newport homepage here, and you can also sign up to our Newport newsletter here.
Carlien said she blames the shop which sold her the sun cream on the island, global warming which she believes made the island “much hotter than it was when we came here eight years ago”, and herself for “not being able to protect my kids from this horrible thing happening to them”.
“I’m so grateful to the public doctors for the free advice from our EHIC (European Health Insurance Card) cards,” she said. “We will always remember this holiday disaster and probably be reminded of it for the rest of our lives through the possible scarring.”
After spending a large proportion of their holiday flicking through Spanish TV channels in their hotel room, Carlien said she feels she needs to offer advice to others planning on going abroad to a hot climate.
She added: “It was disastrous really because we had to spend five or six days of our two-week annual holiday in a hot apartment with nothing to do. We couldn’t go swimming or go out because I desperately needed to keep them out of the sun.
“My advice would be; take your sunscreen with you from the UK, take Calpol for the kids and all other meds from the UK, stay out of the sun between 12pm and 4pm, take your EHIC cards when holidaying abroad, and double check all advice - even the small print on products - when in a foreign country.”
