A Nighclubbing
woman was left with agonising burns spanning her back and legs – making
her skin look like “boiled ham” - after knocking over a vat of oil as
she fled from a nightclub shoot out.
Julie
Saint-Fleur, 23, had been working in a fast-food truck outside a busy
Florida nightclub, when an argument broke out nearby and gunshots were
fired.
Terrified, she and her crowd of
customers ran for their lives – but in the mayhem, the vat of boiling
oil she’d been cooking pork and chicken in was knocked over, spilling
down her back.
The horrifying incident left her with severe scars, at first plunging her into a deep depression.
But, with incredible courage, she has now embraced her scars - even
setting up an Instagram, where she shows them off to inspire others -
and has also found love with boyfriend Gabriel Myrthil, 29.
“Gabriel isn’t at all fazed by my scars.
He tells me I’m beautiful, and with him by my side, I feel it,” said
Julie, of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, USA.
“I’ve discovered a courage inside me I didn’t know I had. My scars are here to stay and I’m going to embrace them.”
Julie recalled:
“My eyes darted around to see where it had come from and then – quite
literally – I was staring down the barrel of a gun.
“The shooter was stood right in front of me, barely 5ft away. He was a customer I’d served recently.
“He’d been waiting for his food, but appeared to get into some sort of argument with another customer.”
After that, two more gunshots rang out – triggering a chaos, as the
petrified crowd scrambled back inside to the club’s kitchen for safety.
As she ran, Julie felt a pressure on her spine and feared she’d been shot.
Spotting her brother Mark Alexis, 20, inside, she begged for help.
Checking her back, he realised that,
rather than being shot, she had been terribly burnt, where the oil vat
had tipped over onto her.
“When I looked down, I was horrified to see the skin was melting off around my hips, revealing pink flesh,” said Julie.
“But with so much adrenaline pumping through me, I could barely feel a thing – although my brain knew it was really bad.”
With the gunman still on the loose, all Julie could do was cower in the kitchen, her skin still cooking.
Eventually, security staff told everybody the coast was clear.
But by then, the pain had set in and Julie was in too much agony to wait for an ambulance.
Instead, a friend raced her to nearby Plantation General Hospital,
where doctors cut her out of her clothes and pumped her full of
morphine.
A team of around 30 nurses swarmed around and began to wash the oil off Julie’s skin.
However, the pain was too much for her and
she passed out, before being transferred to Kendall Regional Medical
Centre 40 miles away for more specialised treatment.
“I woke with my mum Marie, 59, by my side and doctors explaining I’d
suffered second and third degree burns to my back, bottom and legs,”
said Julie.
“The areas of my skin I’d been able to see looked like a boiled ham, dissolving at the edges.
“Three of my five tattoos had been destroyed, completely erased by the
hot oil. Suddenly, I felt really angry. This had happened to me just
because some guy had lost his temper."
For the next
month, Julie stayed in hospital, needing four operations - one a week –
with surgeons taking skin from the front of her legs to replace the
damaged flesh on the back.
In August 2016, she
was allowed home, but her skin was still so tight she could barely walk
and had to use a Zimmer frame to get around.
She also struggled mentally, battling with the knowledge her scars were unlikely to improve.
Sinking into a deep depression, she barely
left the house, even taking her university course in elementary
education online, so she didn’t have to go to lectures.
But when Gabriel, who was then just a friend, invited her out for a
catch up, she decided to go, realising it was important to get out.
“There was never anything romantic between Gabriel and me, but when we
met that day, our relationship felt different,” explained Julie.
“The chemistry between us was impossible to ignore, and in October 2016 we decided to become a couple.”
Now, Julie has accepted her scars, which she displays on Instagram, to inspire other burns survivors.
The investigation into the shooting is now inactive, and she was never called as a witness.
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