How a Viral TikTok Trend Led to Our Burn Accident

Thank you to Chloe for sharing her story with us.

As parents, we feel confident that we’ve educated our kids well when it comes to danger. We see a red back spider, our brains scream danger. We see a snake, our brains scream danger. We buckle up in the car, wear helmets on bikes, and always close the pool gate—our brains are wired to identify risk.

But our children, pre-teens, and even teens? Their brains aren’t fully developed to understand the complexity of certain dangers, no matter how much we teach them. And sometimes, despite all the safety measures in the world, accidents still happen.

For me, burns were something I never truly understood the severity of until it happened to my family.

It was a typical day at home. My husband was almost back from work, and my three kids and I had just returned from a wild weekend camping—riding motorbikes, quads, and cooking over an open fire. These activities, for me, come with clear risks, so my guard is always up.

But what happened that day? I didn’t see it coming.

My eldest daughter often makes her own food—toast, pasta, scrambled eggs—so she’s no stranger to kitchen safety. On this day, she had seen a TikTok video for a “Tanghulu” recipe—a toffee-like coating made by heating sugar and water in the microwave.

We’d actually made the same recipe together the previous week, and I clearly remember my husband’s warning: "Sugar and water gets insanely hot; it can burn you badly." But in the moment, none of us imagined how dangerous this seemingly innocent recipe could be.

Tanghulu is essentially candied fruit. You dip strawberries or grapes on a skewer into a hot sugar syrup and then dunk them into icy water to create a hard, candy-like coating. Most of the TikTok hacks suggest using the microwave for this process—something that seems harmless enough at first glance. But here’s the reality: sugar and water mixtures can reach incredibly high temperatures, making them extremely dangerous.

And microwaving this mixture? It’s a disaster waiting to happen.

I was in my home office, just a few steps from the kitchen where my daughter was. I could hear the microwave running, so I called out to ask what she was making. No response. I got up and walked into the kitchen, telling her to get whatever it was out of the microwave.

She opened the door, pulled out the “microwave-safe” bowl—it hadn’t even been in for 30 seconds—and then it happened.

The bottom of the bowl exploded. The scalding hot sugar syrup shot out, flying 1.5 meters across the room. In an instant, it landed on my 7-year-old son’s foot.

He hadn’t done anything wrong. He was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Thankfully, I knew what to do. I immediately ran my son’s foot under room-temperature water for 30 minutes. That quick thinking helped minimize the damage. We rushed him to our local hospital, where we were transferred to Queensland Children’s Hospital’s burns unit.

The diagnosis? Third-degree, full-thickness burns.

Over the next four weeks, my son underwent ten general anaesthetics for debridement, dressing changes, and a skin graft. We spent four nights in the hospital and had two to three appointments every week to monitor the healing process. His foot has healed amazingly, and his functionality is great, but there’s a long road ahead with ongoing scar management and the possibility of more procedures in the future.

As a parent, I remained positive throughout the ordeal, grateful that things weren’t worse. But something the doctor said stuck with me: “I love how positive you are, but don’t let it take away from the fact that this is horrific. Burns are lifelong injuries.”

Burns aren’t like a broken bone that heals after a few weeks. They require ongoing care, procedures, and scar management. My son will continue to need therapy, follow-ups, and potentially more surgeries as his skin graft won’t grow at the same rate as the rest of his skin.

Since my son’s injury, Queensland Children’s Hospital has seen over ten similar cases. They even released a TikTok video to raise awareness about the dangers of viral trends like this one.

I’m sharing our story not only to raise awareness but to emphasise how crucial it is to talk with your kids about the dangers lurking in seemingly innocent activities. And, most importantly, how knowing basic first aid can make a life-changing difference.

If I hadn’t learned about burns and first aid from Tiny Hearts, I wouldn’t have known how to remain calm, act quickly, or advocate for my son at the first hospital.

Our healthcare system does an incredible job, but it’s not perfect. Even at the first hospital, there was a lack of proper first aid treatment for a full-thickness burn. It’s moments like these that show just how important it is to be prepared, to know what to do in an emergency, and to advocate for your child’s care.

Accidents can happen in the blink of an eye, and as parents, we can’t always prevent them. But we can arm ourselves and our children with the knowledge that may just save a life.