Toddler’s trauma has family warning others

GUTHRIE, Okla. — A 2 year old’s frightening accident in the kitchen has a Guthrie family speaking out.

They want to let everyone know just how dangerous cooking with children can be.

Baylee Bryan is the type of 2 year old who lets nothing go unexplored.

She and her older sister wanted to be helpers.

They were making no-bake peanut butter cups with mom, otherwise known as Chasity Bryan.

Chasity turned away for just a second and it happened.

She said, “It was only two minutes in the microwave, not even to a boiling point and it melted her skin off.”

Baylee had climbed up on the counter and spilled two and a half cups of scalding water down her leg.

Chasity said, “She was screaming bloody murder. It was so sad.”

The result was first-and second-degree burns covering 10 percent of Baylee’s little body.

Tony McCarty is a field supervisor for EMSA.

He said, “Ten percent body area is fairly significant.”

McCarty said water is just one danger in the kitchen.

He said, “You open up your oven door and that door is 3, 4, or 500 degrees. A child touches it and instantly has a second-to third-degree burn.”

Paramedics say pot and pan handles, stovetops and knives are the other big cooking dangers to children.

Baylee’s grandmother, Linda Bryan, says of the burns, “It’s traumatic. It changes the family. Baylee is really getting calmer now.”

While the toddler is expected to be back to her busy self in no time, Baylee’s mother and grandmother hope sharing the experience will keep someone else from learning the painful lesson first hand.

Linda said, “People have to be reminded, you have to watch these little kids. They’re precious and they’re special, every one of them. And your life can change in a second.”

EMSA paramedics said if you want to have the young ones in the kitchen while you cook, put them in a high chair if you can.

That way they can see what’s going on but aren’t able to get into trouble.