Woman who suffered 90% burns after severe allergic reaction to penicillin now wears scars with pride
Camille Lagier suffered a life-threatening reaction to penicillin and had to spend weeks in the hospital after she was left with second-degree burns to 90 percent of her body. It was only later that she learnt she was allergic to the common antibiotic after she was covered from head to toe in bandages. Lagier had been given the antidote in order to treat tonsillitis, but she suffered serious burns all over her body within moments of ingesting the medicine.
The penicillin damaged her mouth, tongue, genitals, windpipe, and covered her body in scars during the three weeks she spent recovering in the hospital. Lagier suffers from toxic epidermal necrolysis (TEN) - a rare condition that affects one or two people per million - but she has accepted that her skin won't go back to how it was earlier. She now wears her scars with pride and says "they remind me every day that I won."