Curry’s burning issue
November 21st, 2008 by Johnny TiplerWell, it’s almost a year now since the infamous chemical burns incident, when ‘acid house’ took on a new slant. We ordered a new Zanussi dishwasher from our local branch of Curry’s and paid the installation fee, but being a few days short of Christmas the delivery guys were in a hurry and simply dropped it off, plugged it in and were gone. My boy Alfie even had to flag them down to ask how to open the door. When water spewed onto the kitchen floor it was clear we had a problem so a phone-call to Curry’s dispatch office summoned the delivery guys back to sort it out. The man in charge took one look at the situation and said, ‘Oh, you just want to put some caustic soda down there, mate,’ indicating the waste pipe at the back of the machine; ‘that’ll sort it out,’ he said.
In the meantime I’d figured that there must be a blockage, so I poured something called Drain Clean down the sink to see if that would clear it. Alfie went out and bought caustic soda, and I did as Curry’s man recommended and poured the crystals down the waste pipe that housed the dishwasher’s outlet tube. Nothing happened. I asked Alfie to get me a garden cane. I began rodding the tube. ‘Let me do it, Dad,’ he said. ‘No, it’s OK I’m nearly there,’ I said. All of a sudden the substance in the tube erupted like a shotgun, splattering its contents all over the kitchen ceiling and cabinets and, critically, my face and forehead.
Despite my glasses it had gone in my eyes and also my mouth, and I was instantly blinded. Alfie bundled me into the utility room pushed my head in the sink and turned the tap on, then rushed outside to seek help. I tried to wash the gluey matter off my head. Peter Grant, foreman of the Cathedral Close workshop is a trained first-aider, and he took over washing my head. I believe I owe my sight to his fast action.
Minutes later, all hell broke loose. Two paramedics arrived on bicycles, followed by two fire engines, a police car with bomb squad officers and an ambulance. The paramedics put an aloe-vera hood over my head and I was rushed off to the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital. 24 hours of tests and constant irrigation followed as the nurses strove to lower the PH on my skull from an off-the-chart 14 to something nearer the normal 8. I went into theatre for skin grafts and plastic surgery and was released four days later on Christmas Eve. The grafts on my forehead were taken from my thigh, which was much more painful, and it was crutches and a cocktail of eye drops for the next 10 days, bandages and dressings for a further month.
My glasses were destroyed, though without them I’d be blind. But what doesn’t bear thinking about is what would have happened to Alfie if I’d let him stir the chemical. And all because Curry’s failed to make sure the appliance was working - what we paid the installation charge for - and then issued all too glib advice about using highly dangerous chemicals. What’s more, when challenged subsequently they were unsympathetic and their delivery man denied saying what he did. Will I ever shop at Curry’s again? I don’t think so.
