A Calais toddler was seriously burned Wednesday after his father dropped a bottle of flammable liquid that had ignited, spilling it over the child, authorities said.
The was 1-year-old was sitting with his mother near a campfire behind their Pleasant Road home, where they were planning to cook hotdogs and s’mores, according to Stephen McCausland, spokesman for the Maine Department of Public Safety.
The boy’s father started pouring a flammable liquid from a plastic bottle to intensify the fire, but the flame traveled up the stream to the bottle and ignited, McCausland said. The father then dropped the container, and it’s contents spilled onto the boy, McCausland said.
The 1-year-old was LifeFlighted to a Bangor hospital and then flown to Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, where he is being treated for burns over 60 percent of his body, McCausland said.
McCausland said it’s never advisable to throw a flammable liquid on a fire as the liquid or its vapors can explode.