A North Carolina mother was left with third-degree burns after gallons of hot grease fell on her at work.
Monika Horton was working at Brick City Grill restaurant when she was asked to turn off the fryer – a job she claimed she was never trained to do.
Instead of pressing the off button, Horton mistakenly pressed the release button, causing the boiling-hot grease to suddenly spill all over her body.
‘I went over to press what I thought was the off button, but I ended up hitting the release button,’ she explained to My Fox 8. ‘As a result, all of that grease came pouring out on me at once.’
The 350-degree oil caused her to fall, and despite her attempts to escape, she kept slipping, resulting in burns so severe that she had to be airlifted to the UNC burn center.
‘When that grease hit me, it hit me, you can see it went straight through my Crocs. I’m going to have croc scars forever,’ she said.
She spent weeks in the hospital, where underwent a skin graft on her foot.
Doctors estimate it will take her two to four more months to completely recover.
Even after weeks in the hospital, dark red burns still linger on her skin and will leave permanent scars.
Monika Horton was working at Brick City Grill when she was asked to turn off the fryer – a job she claimed she was never trained to do, leading to disaster
‘So I went over and pulled what I thought was the off button, but I hit the release button,’ she told My Fox 8 . ‘So all of that grease came flooding out on me at one time’
However, Horton cared less about the scars and more about getting home to her daughter as fast as possible.
‘It wasn’t: “Oh man, I can’t go to work,” or “Oh man, I’m going to be broke,” it was just ‘Am I going to be able to play with my daughter again like a normal person again?”‘ she told the outlet.
The family started a GoFundMe to help pay for her medical bills, as her job does not offer health insurance.
‘Many of you already know how loving and hardworking my wife Monika Horton is,’ her husband Brian wrote. ‘She is the backbone of this family, and we can’t do this thing called life without her. So I’m here today asking for help and prayers as we move forward in this healing process.
‘The hospital bills and other bills are piling up, and I am just one man trying my very best to hold it all together, but it is hard, so very hard to do without my better half and loving mother, our backbone of this family, Monika Horton.’
The 350-degree oil caused her fall and every time she tried to escape the inferno, she kept falling, leading to burns so bad she had to be life-flighted to the UNC burn center
She spent weeks in the hospital, where underwent a skin graft on her foot. Doctors estimate it will take her two to four more months to completely recover
The family started a GoFundMe to help pay for her medical bills, as her job does not offer health insurance
‘She is the backbone of this family, and we can’t do this thing called life without her. So I’m here today asking for help and prayers as we move forward in this healing process,’ her husband, Brian, wrote on the fundraiser
The fundraiser has garnered $4,000 of its $15,000 goal.
Horton does plan on suing her employer, as she believes the tragedy was preventable.
‘I feel like an idiot now, but also I wasn’t trained, I had no idea what I was doing, I feel like I shouldn’t have been asked to do it at this point,’ she told My Fox 8.
