Fire dancer burns her face, hands and hair during performance
A female resident of the city of Tver in Central Russia suffered serious burns of her face during a fire show, in which she performed as an artist. The show could have led to more serious consequences. As soon as the girl's face caught fire, she threw the burning balls - known as poi - away from her into the spectators. Many of them were children.
The incident took place on June 1st, during the celebration of Children's Day in Russia. However, it received public attention only after the video of the incident appeared on the Internet.
The video, filmed by an eyewitness, shows the 16-year-old woman - Polina Druzhinina - dancing with fire. When she tried to blow the fire out, her face, which most likely had drops of kerosene on it, caught fire. The woman tried to put the fire down immediately, but it only spread to her hands and hair.
The next moment, the dancer threw the burning equipment into the crowd. Luckily, no one else was injured. One of the spectators, a young man, saved the girl. He threw her onto the ground and buried her face into the grass.
"I can hardly remember anything. When my face started burning and when it was all over - it feels like it was not happening to me. I can only remember that it was very hot on the face, I remember the cold grass too. I remember I was washing my face with the water from the river and then they took me to the hospital," the woman told the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper.
Polina suffered second and third degree burns.
The woman later told reporters that she was not new in the art of dancing with fire. "I've been doing this for more than a year. I started "breathing fire" in January of this year, so I had some experience," she said.
Denis Avayev, the leader of the fire group, Fire Mirage, in which the woman performs, told the Tver News Agency that the burns were not serious. "Doctors said that she would be just like before in a couple of weeks," he said.
