- My Kitchen Rules winner Monzir Hamdin, 29, from Fairfield, NSW, was clearing the backyard ahead of a family gathering when the unthinkable happened.
- Cutting branches from overgrown trees, Monzir splashed them with petrol and placed them in the pizza oven to dispose of them quick and easily.
- When a fireball erupted, Monzir realised he’d made a serious mistake
Here Monzir tells his story in his own words.
Wiping a bead of sweat from my forehead, I gulped down some cold water.
Now to clean this up, I thought.
It was September 2023 and, after a night of intense rain, I’d spent the morning cutting branches from overgrown trees in the backyard.
My partner, Janelle, then 28, and I had been visiting her grandparents’ home when I’d offered to clear up their yard ahead of a family gathering happening later that day.
Sweeping the wet branches into a pile, I wondered how I was going to dispose of them quick and easily.
That’s when I spotted the big woodfire pizza oven. Trained chefs, Janelle and I had appeared on the TV show My Kitchen Rules in 2022, and together we won the season.
Since then, I’d used the large brick oven a handful of times during family dinners.
With an opening of around 40cm in diameter, it seemed the perfect way to dispose of the 30 big branches now taking up the outdoor area.
As I piled them in, the long branches stuck out of the front.
After lighting a firelighter cube using a long gas lighter, I took a step back and threw it into the oven.
But the branches were soaked through, preventing them from catching alight.
Pulling them out again, I piled them on the ground and splashed them with some petrol I’d found in the shed, before loading them back into the oven.
Not wanting to put my hand in the petrol-filled cavity, I lit the next firelighter cube in my hand before throwing it in.
This time the flames erupted instantly, spewing out of the pizza oven towards me.
‘Help me!’ I cried
It all happened so quickly that I didn’t have a chance to get out of the way.
I put my left hand up to shield my face and, as the fire then tore through my clothes, I let out a gut-wrenching scream.
‘Help me!’ I cried.
A human fireball, I was being burned alive!
Diving into a flowerbed a few steps away from me, I rolled around to extinguish the flames.
On hearing a bang, Janelle rushed outside to my aid, drenching me with water from the garden hose and screaming for her mum, Ayshe, to call emergency services.
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With adrenaline kicking in, I wasn’t feeling any pain, and having dark skin I couldn’t tell the severity of my burns.
Janelle continued hosing me down until paramedics arrived around 20 minutes later.
They rushed me to Canterbury Hospital where a team of doctors assessed my injuries.
‘You have second and third-degree burns,’ one doctor said.
My entire left arm, hand, shoulders, back and both legs and feet were completely scorched
Thankfully, my last-minute attempt to protect my face meant I’d only received second-degree burns to my forehead and cheeks, but the rest of my body wasn’t so lucky.
My entire left arm, hand, shoulders, back and both legs and feet were completely scorched with third-degree burns.
I watched in horror as every piece of burned skin the doctor touched peeled away from my body, revealing red raw skin beneath.
By now, the shock had worn off and I was in a world of pain.
And I felt hot all over – like I was on fire again.
‘Please stop,’ I begged the doctor, desperate for respite.
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I was given pain relief and fluids which helped dull the agony.
Two hours later I was transferred by ambulance, with Janelle, to Concord Hospital, where a specialist team rushed me through to the burns unit.
As I squirmed in pain, doctors spent the next hour scraping the charcoal skin from my wounds, before wrapping each burn with a layer of pig skin – a temporary graft that can protect the wound, reduce pain and provide a clean surface to help the body heal.
To prevent the wounds from becoming infected, the nurses had to repeat the debriding process every morning and change the dressings.
Despite the ordeal, I was surrounded with so much love and support from my mum, Om Bakhat, 61, sister, Hanna, 20, and Janelle’s mum, who visited each day with home cooked meals and endless care.
And through it all, Janelle never left my side.
READ MORE SURVIVAL STORIES: I Was A Human Fireball!
‘You gave me quite the fright,’ she later admitted.
‘I can’t believe how silly I was. What was I thinking?’ I said.
After 10 long days in hospital, the doctor finally had some good news.
‘Your skin is healing quickly. You won’t need a skin graft,’ he said.
As my wounds healed, though, I could feel the skin tightening around my elbow and knee joints.
So I started working with a physio on daily stretching to improve the range of motion in my limbs.
Almost three weeks on from the accident, I was discharged.
Living separately at the time, I then moved into Janelle’s family home for three months.
There I had around the clock care.
Janelle drove me to and from my medical appointments, and a nurse dressed my burns twice a week for two weeks, until I learned to dress them myself.
Now more than 20 months on, my scars remind me how lucky I am to be alive.
Looking back, I realise how dangerous it was to mix fire and petrol. I’m hoping my story will warn others, especially as the weather gets colder, not to make the same mistake.
Although I was hesitant to cook with fire again after the ordeal, I’m now back whipping up pizzas for our families again.
It’s the least I can do to thank everyone for taking care of me when I needed it most.
