Child suffers burns while playing with petrol, matches

ALOR STAR: A seven-year-old boy suffered burns while playing with a bottle of petrol and matches with some friends at a playground near his home in Taman Jelutong, Kuala Nerang here yesterday.
Fortunately, during the incident around 2.40pm, Mohd Naufal Zafran Mohd Zahirrudin's father happened to pass by the area on his way home from a shop on a motorcycle.
"I was passing by the playground at 2.45pm when I saw my son standing alone. He was trying to remove his pants that had caught fire which he was trying to put out," Mohd Zahirrudin Zakaria, 42, said when met at Sultanah Bahiyah Hospital here today.
He said he saw burn marks on the back, legs and hands of his son who is presently being treated at the hospital.
"I noticed a 1.5L bottle in the drain, which was still alight, and traces of fire on the grass and the smell of petrol," he recalled.
Mohd Zahirrudin said he brought his son home before sending him to Kuala Nerang Hospital where he was subsequently referred to Sultanah Bahiyah Hospital.
Meanwhile, Noor Hamiza Che Man, 40, the mother of the boy who is the fourth of five children said prior to the incident, her son had informed her after returning home from school at 1.30pm, that he was going out to the playground with his friends.
"I didn't expect this to happen as he had just gone out to play. I was shocked when my husband brought him home in such condition," she said, adding that the skin on his son 's neck was seriously burned, and gone also were his hair and eyebrows.
It is understood that the victim and his friends found the bottle of petrol and some matches at the playground. — Bernama