Daniil Chernenko suffered 80 per cent burns after accidentally falling into ten litres of boiling water his mother was planning to mix with cold water in a baby bath. Doctors battled to save him for 11 days, but Daniil died just two days after his first birthday. Nurses said the boy, from Salhany in southern Ukraine, went through unbearable pain.
Tatyana Chernenko, Daniil’s mother, was about to bathe her son in a baby bath atop a table when he fell into a bucket of scalding water.
She brought the bucket into the bedroom and placed it on the floor near a table.
Mrs Chernenko was planning to mix it with cold water.
At this point, Daniil was playing on the table near the bathtub.
But when his mother turned away for a few seconds to take some cold water, the child fell from the table into the bucket of boiling water.
Mrs Chernenko told local reporters: “I saw how he fell in the boiling water. I rushed to the bucket and pulled him out.
“I hugged him, then wrapped in a cotton cloth. When I unwrapped him I saw his skin was peeling off.”
The boy was rushed to hospital in Odessa, the capital city in the region, in a critical condition.
Only patches of skin on Daniil’s forehead, fingers and toes avoided the scalding water, it is reported.
Nurses also claim his voice became hoarse from constant crying caused by the unbearable pain.
Doctors battled around the clock to save him, with the boy coming close to death several times but doctors managed to bring him back each time.
Daniil’s terrible plight moved people around the world to donate money to help fund his treatment.
Katherine Nozhevnikova, a volunteer from a local charity, took heartbreaking images of the one-year lying on a hospital bed.
She said: “Ten litres of boiling water and just a few seconds during which the mother’s attention was diverted.
“The child won 11 days of life thanks to people who donated funds for his treatment.
“We have lost him. I am so sorry.”
His mother was in the hospital with her son when he died and reports claim she is unable to forgive herself for what happened.
Police are said to be treating the case as an accident.