UK woman suffers ghastly burns after attempt to poach eggs using viral TikTok hack backfires

‘It was the worst pain I’ve ever experienced in my life and I’ve had two natural childbirths’

Peony Hirwani
Wednesday 14 July 2021 10:18 BST
Comments
Chantelle Conway suffers ghastly burns after attempt to poach eggs using viral TikTok hack backfires
Chantelle Conway suffers ghastly burns after attempt to poach eggs using viral TikTok hack backfires (Chantelle Conway/ TikTok)

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

A British TikToker suffered ghastly facial burns to her face after an attempt to poach eggs using a viral TikTok trend backfired.

Chantelle Conway, a Bolton-based content creator, was attempting to poach an egg in the microwave, by boiling the kettle and filling up a cup with a raw egg in the water for ten seconds.

Towards the end, when the 25-year-old put a cold spoon into the hot water to remove the cooked egg, the boiling hot water suddenly shot in her face as she stood over the cup.

Conway described the incident to be “the worst pain I’ve ever experienced in my life”.

She likewise claimed that she had been cooking eggs in the microwave for almost two years, until it went wrong on Friday.

“I’ve always done poached eggs that way because it was just a quicker and easier way of doing them,” she told Kennedy News. “When I took it out of the microwave I put a metal spoon in to turn the egg and check if it was cooked but as soon as the spoon touched the water it shot out. It wasn’t the egg that blew up, that landed on my kitchen side.”

“The water went everywhere - all over my face and neck and I’m sure it even hit the ceiling because there’s a mark above where I was standing,” she said.

The popular method on TikTok involves cracking an egg into water with a tablespoon of vinegar and microwaving it for 90 seconds.

“It was the worst pain I’ve ever experienced in my life and I’ve had two natural childbirths - it felt like someone had a blowtorch on my face constantly and I was convinced my whole face had burnt off,” she added. “I was looking right over the cup so I’m really lucky that I managed to shut my eyes in time and wasn’t blinded but my eyelids were badly burnt.

The mother of two admitted that she thought she “would’ve died from the pain” if she hadn’t acted so fast “pouring cold water” on herself to prevent her from suffering third-degree burns.

After calling her ex-partner Mark Ball, the amateur chef had to wait for an hour to get medical help as she was home alone with her 18-month-old daughter.

Chantelle Conway suffers ghastly burns after attempt to poach eggs using viral TikTok hack backfires
Chantelle Conway suffers ghastly burns after attempt to poach eggs using viral TikTok hack backfires (Chantelle Conway/ TikTok)

Upon arrival, Ball drove her to the Royal Bolton Hospital where medics immediately administered her morphine and put the patient in a jelly face mask for two hours.

In her TikTok video, Conway said: “I get flashbacks and it’s put me off cooking. I’ll never have an egg again because I’m so traumatised - I used to love eggs.”

“I do take full responsibility for what happened, it was silly of me to do it and I just want more people to know what can happen so it doesn’t happen to anyone else.

“I’ve seen loads of videos of people doing it on TikTok and I just want to show people what can happen to hopefully stop them doing it.”

This isn’t the first time the microwave poached egg hack has injured someone. Last month, a 12-year-old girl from Lancashire was hospitalised with severe burns to her face following an attempt at the viral cooking trick.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in