Perth Children’s Hospital nurse Tania McWilliams warns of alarming rise in severe sunburn in kids

A fun day in the sun turned into an agonising ordeal for 12-year-old Clare Nicholson, who was left so blistered by severe sunburn that she required treatment in hospital. An alarming rise in cases such as Clare’s prompted Perth Children’s Hospital clinical nurse consultant for burns Tania McWilliams to issue a stark warning to parents to make sure their children covered up. “I’ve worked in burns for 28 years and I would say this is the worst year we’ve seen for sunburn,” she said. “Over the last two months, we’ve noticed a large increase in the number of patients presenting with severe sunburn. “The message I’d really like to get out is it is a preventable injury.” PCH figures show that in the past three months, 40 patients were referred to the hospital’s total care burns unit for sunburn, compared with 29 for the same period last year — a 38 per cent increase. Ms McWilliams said clinicians had also noticed a worrying rise in the severity and size of burns. Clare spent a day with friends enjoying rides at Adventure World in Bibra Lake in December. She put on sunscreen in the morning and even re-applied it, but admits jumping into the water too soon after that. And she spent a long time waiting in lines while standing in the full sun, with her back and shoulders exposed by a bikini top. “It really hurt when I was trying to go to bed, like, I couldn’t move,” she said. “Also, I was really cold and I was under four blankets, but my shoulders were really hot. “But the next day, that was probably the worst, because that’s when all the blisters started coming up.” That was when Clare’s mum, Erin, decided she needed medical attention. They sought help from an urgent care clinic, which referred them to the emergency department at PCH. Clare said she did not want any other child to go through the same pain, which was the worst she’d ever experienced. At the hospital, nurses gave her pain relief and popped the blisters. “It really hurt and it just didn’t stop,” she said. “I thought it would get kind of better after a little while — but I think it just got worse.” “There were heaps of small blisters, but there was one main blister that was the biggest of them all. “They wrapped me up a lot with a bunch of bandages, and then sent me home. “But sleeping was so painful.” Later, she had to return to the burns unit for special baths to scrape off all the dead skin. “And that hurt a lot — that probably hurt more than the actual sunburn,” she said. Ms Nicholson said she had been shocked by how quickly and easily Clare was so badly burnt. “I’d never seen blisters that big,” she said. “She was really sick and poorly as well.” Ms McWilliams said children needing treatment for sunburn were presenting with large areas of redness, or with blistering and subsequent skin loss. “Often it is a matter of the appropriate dressings, but some patients are sustaining some burns that are severe enough to need inpatient admission and treatment,” she said. “These are very painful injuries, and they can be prevented with some protection.” Patients fell into two main groups — infants and older, school-aged children. Babies under six months — too young for sunscreen — were frequently getting burnt by reflected UV rays because their parents sat in shaded areas thinking they were protected. And older children were either forgetting to wear sunscreen or to reapply it. Ms McWilliams urged parents to stick with indoor activities when the UV rating was high. And if children did go out in the sun, to make sure they wore a long-sleeved rash vest, hat and sunglasses as well as sunscreen. The warning comes amid growing concerns about a recent social media trend for teens to deliberately get sunburnt to achieve tan lines on their skin. In disturbing TikTok posts, young women show off crisp white marks from bikini straps standing out starkly against their burnt chest. Videos about how to obtain halter neck tan lines have had millions of views on TikTok, with the young influencers ignoring the potential harms of sunburn. Some even encourage viewers to try to build up their tans when UV radiation is at high or extreme levels. While she had not been influenced by the TikTok tanning trend, Clare said it was something she had discussed with friends when they were showing off their tan lines. “It’s not worth it,” she said. “I feel like you get good tan lines for about a week, and then it’s just sunburn, sun stroke, heat stroke and maybe even skin cancer.” Cancer Council WA sunsmart manager Sally Blane said the rise in referrals to PCH was concerning, as was the latest tanning trend. “While we can’t tell how widely this particular trend is being picked up in WA, any glamourisation of tanning needs to stop,” she said. “It does appear that these videos are getting millions of views — we would just urge West Australians to use some common sense if they are thinking about replicating these trends — the damage caused will last a lifetime. “Although the tan will fade, the irreparable damage to skin cells stays and can appear as a lethal skin cancer years or decades later.”