Who's responsible For My First Degree Burns?

I couldn't resist posting about this little gem.

A 14 year old girl from Wales got a lesson in life recently when she flaunted warning signs posted at a self-tanning salon ... and sustained first degree burns over 70% of her body. Ouch!!

This morning in the words of BBC Breakfast "We ask her who she blames for her first degree burns".

Mother and daughter were interviewed and asked more on their position. To their credit, they were not seeking compensation and acknowleged readily that teenager, Kirsty McRae, was in fact acting irresponsibly. That's a relief ... so far.

Commenting on her 19 minute tanning binge, Kirsty said " ... we saw the signs, but there was no-one there to enforce it." Hullo ... that's the point. Are you really too young to not fully grasp that there was danger involved?

Of course not. You were being naughty, you deliberately ignored signs forbidding kids under 16 years from entry... and you got stung.

Unlucky.

Mum feels differently and wants to see ramped up regulations calling for these tanning set-ups to be banned. She describes them as "a vending machine which dispenses ultraviolet radiation" and draws parallels with cigarettes and alcohol.

Ultimately she believes this unregulated product will cause a fatality.

She's probably right ... for the same reason that sometime in the future some kid is going to die playing chicken on the railway lines. Or die because they they've been smoking since childhood.

Aren't parents responsible for appraising their kids of the risks inherent in everyday life? All choices come with consequences.

Perhaps mum would be better served looking in the mirror at her own parenting skills. What kind of message did this send to Kirsty?

I guess she'll grow up into yet another adult who is constantly looking for someone else to blame.

Perhaps you were thinking that this post had little to do with health and more to do with common sense?

My point is that this culture of "someone else is responsible for my lack of responsibility" is translating into a nation that no longer sees the connection between the way they are living and their own failing health.

And someones' got to pick up the tab. A sobering thought.