A 13-year-old boy is recovering after sustaining severe burn blisters to his face after visiting a tanning salon three times in a day.
Kieron Saunders from Tredegar, Blaenau Gwent, spent a total of 21 minutes under the lights of the stand-up booth.
He has been told to stay at home for a week after the burns became infected.
The salon's owner, Steven James, said he was "gutted" by the incident and is arranging meetings with officials to prevent it happening again.
Kieron's mother, Maria, said she had warned her son about the dangers of sunbeds before and had threatened to "ground him" and take away his pocket money if he used them again.
Swelling
"His lips swelled up and he looked like Baloo the bear from the Jungle Book," said Mrs Saunders.
"He couldn't lift his head up and he couldn't swallow. The doctor said it was because he had been badly burned.
"Kieron is quite a vain boy and he is self-conscious about his acne - that was why he used sunbeds."
The salon, called 'Sun Kissed', displays signs stating under-16s are not allowed to use the booths and not to tan for longer than six minutes.
However, the premises remains unstaffed for much of the day.
Mrs Saunders said her son ignored signs in the salon about tanning and she called for it to be staffed at all times.
The salon owner said he is looking at ways to prevent such an incident happening again but added that the salon was only unstaffed to compete with others in the area.
"I would very much prefer to have someone there all the time," added Mr James.
"We are not operating illegally and if laws were passed to make all salons staffed all of the time it would solve the problem.
"I was absolutely gutted when this happened and I'm very concerned about it.
"I'm now considering staffing the shop outside school hours and maybe full time."
The British Association of Dermatologists said there needed to be further scrutiny of the tanning industry.
"This sort of horror story is precisely why sunbeds need tighter regulation," said Nina Goad, from the association.
"Under 18s should not be allowed to use sunbeds, and unmanned, coin operated sunbeds should be scrapped altogether.
"Children can't be expected to understand the risks that these machines pose, especially when they can be found at sports centres and places that suggest they are 'healthy', which sends conflicting messages."
Source.
Yeah, more regulation is what "we" need...
Haha of course, Government is the Answer! Just joking anyway, I do not feel very sympathetic for the mother. She is going on trying to pass the blame for the incident on the salon owner, when it was her fault. If she has a 13 year old son that goes tanning, how is that the businesses fault? The business even put up signs to discourage kids his age, but that wasnt enough. The blame belongs to the mother. She says that she had threatened to ground him, but that is not true. Why wouldnt she have grounded him after each day he comes home slightly tanner than before? It is poor parenting, and since parents dont want to do their duty, they feel that it should be taken care of by the state through regulating business making it illegal to operate they way the business wants. This type of event serves as a catalyst for the anti-free market "regulators" and "socialists" out there who believe in stripping businesses of their rights and heavy regulation of business with significant punishments.
P.S: What boys go tanning? In Ohio at least, that is not looked on as very uh.... straight.....
...And nobody has ever taught you how to live out on the street, But now you're gonna have to get used to it...
In most of Europe (and especially northern Europe) it's vogue to have a tan. Many Scandinavians and most southern Europeans tan well naturally, leaving the Brits and any others who don't tan well (or don't get enough sun or want a winter tan) to go to tanning salons. I guess European men (including myself) are more concerned about their appearance than Americans, who see it as effeminate.
At any rate, this is a pure act of stupidity. All the government would do by "regulating" it is further foment stupidity and dependence on government. What interested me is the salon owner's comment calling for full-time staffing. Why should a law be passed for this? I'm guessing there are government restrictions on salons, and that what the owner actually wants is the repeal of a law. If anything, the guilty party in this event is the negligent mother, as you said.
Inquisitor: guess European men (including myself) are more concerned about their appearance than Americans, who see it as effeminate.
Haha maybe, It may just be the part of America in which I live that this belief is held (Ohio is pretty rural)
It's like they're deliberately trying to create Idiocracy. The kid was too stupid to understand that what he was doing was dangerous despite being told, both by his mother and by the signs in the tanning salon, that it was. It's a damn shame the dumbshit didn't become eligible for a Darwin award; the best way to deal with stupid people is to let them kill themselves doing stupid things.
Corporations are an extension of the state.
Rich333:It's a damn shame the dumbshit didn't become eligible for a Darwin award
Lol.. those books are hilarious.
mr_anonymous:P.S: What boys go tanning? In Ohio at least, that is not looked on as very uh.... straight.....
Even when girls go tanning it doens't always look good.
Electronic Frontier Foundation
Free Software Foundation
I don't know how sensible people think this calls for more regulations, even if they are statists. It's an extreme example and any regulation will take place after-the-fact. I don't see the logic.
But it is interesting how most regulations forever trail behind actual events. Government interventions are always too late to cure whatever they were supposed to cure.