After a little girl from Ashdod suffered serious skin burns and her dress caught
fire while lighting Shabbat candles in her kindergarten on Friday, her mother
and Kaplan Medical Center doctors called on the government to halt the practice
by replacing them with virtual electric “candles.”
The five-year-old
girl’s mother and physicians said that it was very risky for lit candles to be
handled by small children during kindergarten ceremonies demonstrating how to
make Shabbat – and that the custom has led to injuries.
Orinne, the
injured girl, was set afire by the candle, and she suffered second-degree burns
on her chest and abdomen on the right side. The girl got up to hand out the
halla and sweets when a spark from the candles set her dress
afire.
Treatment at Kaplan was successful, but it is complicated and very
painful. The doctors saved her life, said her mother, Eleanor.
Now the
girl will need longterm rehabilitation for her burns injury, including high
doses of vitamins and proteins, creams and changes of bandages.
“I call
on all kindergarten teachers to use electric candles to prevent the next case
from occurring,” the mother pleaded.
Dr. Uri Schulman, a plastic surgeon,
commented that “apparently, the kindergarten teachers swift actions prevented a
greater tragedy. It was a deep burn, and if there isn’t satisfactory progress,
we will have to use surgery to give her skin transplants.”
Demonstrating
the lighting of Shabbat candles, he said, can be done behind class, without the
children being close, or with electric candles that do not burn.