A 19-year-old Australian surfer on his first solo trip abroad has suffered severe burns to 13 per cent of his body after a boat explosion in Indonesia.
Jensen Kirby was vacationing on the idyllic Telos Islands off the west coast of Sumatra when he decided to take a speedboat to a surf spot on August 11.
The Perth teenager said he was engulfed in a blazing “fireball” after the captain mishandled a boat’s battery which began spewing petrol flames.
“The mechanic was putting the battery in and connecting it. He connected the negative to the positive, so it was wrong, and as soon as he clicked it, it just sparked and ignited the gasoline fumes in the boat,” Kirby told the newspaper. alphabet.
“All I saw was the spark and the next moment I saw the flames all around me and I thought, ‘Oh my God, what the hell do I do? ‘ I was in the middle of this fire.
“I just remember hearing a loud whistling sound as it passed by me. It was crazy, like something out of a movie.
‘I turned around and jumped straight into the water because I was so scared and I got as far away as I could in case there was another explosion.’
Mr Kirby said it felt like a “sunburn times 100” and he ran straight into the sea to get relief, but unfortunately his leg hit the sand and the skin tore.
Jensen Kirby, 19, suffered burns to 13 percent of his body after the speedboat he was riding on exploded near the Telos Islands off the west coast of Sumatra, Indonesia, on August 11.
Mr Kirby (pictured) was on his first solo trip abroad when the incident occurred.
The Perth teenager (pictured) said he was engulfed in a blazing “fireball” after a captain mishandled a boat’s battery and it began spewing petrol flames.
“It was like someone had peeled paper off a stack of sheets of paper; it was pretty crazy,” he said.
Mr Kirby ran to the showers to get under the cold water and called his mother in Perth.
“I said, ‘Mom, please don’t be scared,’ and she said, ‘What happened?’ and I said, ‘The boat just exploded,’ and she got nervous,” he recalled.
The young surfer suffered severe burns to his face, chest, arms, hands and legs.
Mr Kirby said his main concern was how difficult it would be to get to a hospital from the remote island before his burns became infected.
During the 45-minute boat ride to a medical station (with the mechanic who escaped the inferno virtually unscathed), Kirby said he kept from passing out by breathing deeply.
“Am I going to live? Am I going to live but not be able to surf again? Am I going to have to have an amputation… because of an infection? And then I also thought, ‘Am I going to die?’ It’s a very, very crazy experience,” he said. 7News.
At the medical center, the talented surfer was given some pills and his wounds were treated with gauze and cream.
She later woke up to find blisters all over her body.
The young surfer suffered severe burns to his face, chest, arms, hands and legs (pictured)
The picturesque Telo Islands, off the west coast of Sumatra, are a popular surfing destination.
Fortunately, Mr Kirby was able to get a plane ticket to Padang, Indonesia, and then to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where his “legendary” mother was waiting for him.
Her partner then flew to Western Australia, where she spent three days in Fiona Stanley Hospital, where he fortunately avoided having to undergo surgery or skin grafts.
“My face was completely peeled off. I was very afraid to look at my face and when I did I looked like I had aged 30 years,” she said.
Asked by ABC radio presenter Jo Trilling when he planned to get back in the water, Mr Kirby replied: “Next week, hopefully.”