GRAPHIC PHOTOS: See How Taking Advice From A Skin Specialist Got This Mum In Trouble

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A mum escaped death by a whisker after she was allegedly told by a specialist to bath with bleach to treat her eczema.

Sarah Cole, 29, from Dapto, near Wollongong, said she received burns to 98 per cent of her body after mixing a full cup of bleach into the bath and soaking her entire body in it. There was some initial pain while in the tub, but it wasn’t until two days later that things took a turn for the worse.

Ms Cole said she woke up unable to function and was rushed to hospital by her partner where she would stay for more than a month.

She said: “Two days (after the bath) I woke up shaking like crazy, I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t talk so my partner called the ambulance and I was taken to hospital where I was taken to ICU. Two and a half weeks later, I was taken to Concord Hospital in Sydney where thankfully they saved my life.”

Her condition was so dire at a stage that her family feared the worst. “My poor parents were pretty much planning my funeral, my partner was looking at selling up his house because he didn’t want to be here if I couldn’t be here with the kids,” she said.

The mother of three had visited a skin specialist with her mother seeking treatment for eczema which she has suffered from since birth.

Both baulked when Ms Cole was allegedly advised to bathe in the bleach mixture, but the specialist assured her it was a legitimate therapy and urged her to give it a go. “I can remember saying to him ‘there’s no way in hell I’m going to bath in bleach, that’ll burn like crazy’ but he said to me and my mum ‘no, no, you have to try it, you don’t expect someone that qualified to give you bad information,” she said.

After getting out of the hospital, Ms Cole and her family researched the treatment further and found that it was a known remedy but says the maximum amount of bleach supposed to be used was one quarter of what she claims was advised. She said there were warnings that anything above a half of a cup would cause severe burns.

As well as the obvious emotional roller coaster Ms Cole has been experiencing since being discharged from hospital, she is also dealing with the horrific physical effects of the toxic bath. “I’m scarred from head to toe so I’ve got a lot of horrible scars that I’m trying to deal with,” she said.

Two of her three children are having to be cared for by her parents as she’s in too much pain and can’t afford to pick up any bugs as her immune system remains weak.

There’s a long road to recovery ahead for Ms Cole but she’s hopeful the scars and the emotional pain will fade down the track.

A fundraising page has been set up to help Ms Cole with her ongoing medical costs.