Accident left AJ Pritchard's girlfriend Abbie with horrifying burns

‘I thought my life was over’: A freak accident left Strictly dancer AJ Pritchard’s girlfriend Abbie with horrifying burns. A year on, she reveals how the physical scars are healing — but the mental ones still linger

• Abbie Quinnen suffered third-degree burns after being injured filming a prank
• Girlfriend of AJ Pritchard, 24, feels lucky to be alive and saved by the NHS
• She learnt how to dress to hide the mesh burns vest she wears for 14 hours a day
• Abbie is back working as part of the cast in panto in Southend-on-Sea, Essex

There have been many challenges for dancer Abbie Quinnen to overcome this year, all stemming from one life-changing moment.

Almost a year ago, while filming a video with her boyfriend, former Strictly dancer AJ Pritchard, and his brother Curtis, Abbie was badly injured, suffering third-degree burns to her face, neck, shoulder and arm.

She lost a great swathe of her hair and part of her right ear, had recurring nightmares and took to her bed for weeks. She didn’t know if the scars would ever fade, whether she would work again, or if her adored AJ would still love her. After all, at first she didn’t even recognise herself in the mirror.

Then, just when it seemed things could hardly get much worse, she was trolled on social media. Yes, a burns victim — trolled.

Abbie Quinnen, 24, (pictured) suffered third-degree burns after being injured while filming a stunt for TikTok almost a year ago 

One troll told her she should have burned to death. Another said she would look like a waxwork model. But the one that really got to her read, ‘Don’t go near your niece and nephew. You’ll scare them.’

‘I remember it so vividly and thinking, “Oh my God, of course I can’t see them. What happens if they see my scars?” I remember dressing really carefully when I saw them and not taking any clothes off, so I didn’t scare them. It was awful.’

It is hard to imagine how difficult it is to claw one’s way back to normality after serious burns injuries — the pain, the endless treatments, the scarring, the shattered confidence — especially if you live in the public eye and your career as a dancer, singer and actress is based on your body and gorgeous looks.

It also can’t help if your famous, handsome boyfriend has a lot of passionate fans who haven’t always been the most supportive.

But for all that, right now, 24-year-old Abbie just feels lucky. To be alive. To have been saved by the NHS. That the burns all over her face have not scarred like those on her neck and arm, and for the kindnesses of family and friends, including Strictly host Claudia Winkleman.

But mostly she is grateful for AJ, who has been by her side every step of the past 11 months — every hospital visit, appointment and dressing change.

‘He laid out my 27 tablets and fed me. He’s very OCD, so he was particularly good at that!’ she says. ‘He’d set timers to wake up every two hours in the night to clean my wounds. And every single doctor’s appointment, he comes with me and holds my hand.’

Abbie’s top half was engulfed in a fireball after she attempted to help with a stunt which involved cutting a glass bottle in half using a rope dipped in a flammable chemical. Pictured: Abbie after the accident 

For weeks, he propped her up and did his best to be cheerful as she cried and cried. He took meals to her in bed and told her he loved her, whatever she looked like.

And, crucially, he persuaded her to see the NHS counsellor who saved her: ‘I wouldn’t be where I am today without her,’ she says.

Then one day, a few weeks after the accident, she found AJ downstairs in the kitchen, utterly broken.

‘He was really bawling. Sort of howling. I’d never seen him like that. He’d been so strong around me but he wasn’t coping at all. He couldn’t unsee what he’d seen. He had his own demons and needed help, too. He needed to see a therapist to talk it out and, finally, he agreed.’

Because as well as witnessing what poor Abbie was going through, AJ was haunted by guilt.

The reckless stunt they had planned to post on TikTok had been his idea — a daft prank to entertain the millions who watch his videos.

The idea was to cut a glass bottle in half by dipping a rope in a flammable chemical, wrapping it round the bottle and lighting a flame. Abbie had popped in to lend a bit of glamour in her skimpy gym kit.

But, within seconds, the bottle shattered and Abbie’s top half was engulfed in a fireball. First, she hurled herself to the floor and rolled about to put out the flames, then she grabbed a thick blanket to smother them. Next, AJ rushed in from the kitchen and threw a bucket of water over her.

‘It was minutes but it felt like hours, I was panicking so much,’ she says, her eyes huge at the memory.

Abbie said she didn’t recognise herself in the mirror after the accident and refused to see AJ. Pictured: Abbie with AJ in September this year

As her skin melted and her hair burned right up the side of her head, she felt no pain: ‘I think my body went into shock. I felt just a bit of heat.’

But she recalls the coursing fear that she would be burned all over, or die of smoke inhalation. And the blind panic as AJ cut off her clothes.

‘The plastic from my crop top was melting and getting stuck in my skin, going deeper and deeper,’ she says, eyes brimming now as she speaks. ‘We had to get it off.’

To add to the trauma, they had to drive to A&E: there were no ambulances because of the pandemic.

All the way, AJ held her hand and talked to keep her conscious. Then, thanks to Covid, it was goodbye at the doors as Abbie was rushed to intensive care. Finally, the pain came — ‘it was indescribable’ — along with the anxiety.

‘I didn’t know if I’d have my face back or if I’d be able to dance again. Performing is my whole life,’ she says. ‘Or if AJ would still love me. I thought, he’s never going to love me like this. I asked him, “Will you still love me?” I just didn’t know.’

It was four days before she could look at herself — and, even then, she couldn’t have done it without a ‘totally brilliant’ NHS therapist by her side.

‘I didn’t recognise myself in the mirror. I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t stop crying, I couldn’t speak. I was in shock, it wasn’t me. I refused to see AJ; I just couldn’t. I sent him away.’

She was bandaged, swollen, burned and needed skin grafts.

That was just the start. Ahead of her lay dressing changes every two hours, multiple skin grafts — two with donor skin, to stem infections — and endless laser therapy and micro-needling sessions to reduce scarring. The treatment will probably go on for years.

Abbie became afraid of everything from the kettle to any depiction of fire on TV, to naked flames. Pictured: Abbie after the accident 

But in many ways, the mental healing has been harder.

When she got home after a week in hospital, she spiralled.

‘I’d have the TV on all night. I was afraid to go to sleep because of the nightmares,’ she says. She took to her bed, crying all day. ‘I was bedbound for weeks. I didn’t get up or go downstairs. I just shut down.’

There could be no physical contact — ‘we couldn’t even have a hug, it was so painful’ — and she felt needy, particularly when AJ was filming for Hollyoaks and had to leave her.

‘I’d beg him not to go and say, “I need you, I need you,” but he had to work,’ she says.

At other times she pushed him away, for fear of losing him. ‘He just looked after me and took no notice. Thank goodness!’ she says today.

She became afraid of everything from the kettle (‘the heat!’) to any depiction of fire on TV, to naked flames (‘I still don’t use candles’). And she missed work desperately.

‘I’ve been training as a dancer since I was three years old,’ she says. ‘I love entertaining — my job is about people seeing me and getting my body out.’

Instead, she lay in bed, fading to just seven stone. It was March, a full two months later, before she felt able to leave the house.

‘Even then, I was petrified someone would see me and scream.’

The rest of the time, she sat around doing nothing for the first time in her life, suddenly worrying like mad about other health issues — checking for moles and examining her breasts obsessively.

Abbie said AJ (pictured together) still struggles when he sees her in a down moment, but she doesn’t blame the accident on him 

‘It gave me a stronger sense of mortality,’ she says. ‘I know bad things can happen.’

While her friends wanted to help, not everyone knew what to say. But Claudia Winkleman did.

‘She was one of the first people to get in touch,’ says Abbie. ‘She was so kind.’

The presenter’s daughter Matilda, then eight, suffered severe burns in 2014 when her Halloween costume caught fire, and she was treated by the same surgeon as Abbie at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital burns unit.

‘Claudia was amazing, saying, “Go to this person”.’

‘She was so, so supportive and told me to call any time,’ says Abbie. ‘Her daughter had several operations. I had three and I thought that was bad. I don’t know how Matilda coped.’

Abbie’s family were great, too. But the brunt fell to AJ.

It must have been hard. Suddenly, his super-hot, fun girlfriend was a vulnerable patient and he was her carer, as well as feeling responsible.

‘I know he struggles still, especially when he sees me in a down moment,’ she says. ‘But I don’t blame him one bit — it was just a freak accident.’

Until then, their life had been ‘pretty much perfect’.

They had met two years earlier when she was a dancer on his Get On The Floor live tour. At the end of the run, AJ asked the entire cast out for dinner — and paid for it —just so he could see Abbie again and ask her out.

‘We’ve been inseparable ever since,’ she says. ‘We had a great life performing, everything was going so well and then this happened.’

Abbie (pictured) is back working again as part of the ensemble cast in panto in Southend-on-Sea, Essex

That they have weathered it is testament to the strength of their relationship, his extraordinary kindness and the help they received. ‘Thanks to the therapy, we were able to talk and laugh and cry about it,’ she says.

Many relationships would have crumbled. But they are closer than ever, she insists. Invincible, even.

‘He is my whole world,’ she says, starting to weep. ‘I love him so, so much and in a funny way the accident has shown me how much he really does love me. He saved me.’

Because finally, and very slowly, life started moving forward again.

Abbie learnt how to dress differently, to hide the mesh burns vest she wears for 14 hours a day. She has put some weight back on, come to terms with the two years with no sun to protect her skin — ‘Oh my God, I love the sun’— and tried to embrace the thousands of messages of support she has received and ignore the trolls.

She uses Nuture Nourishing Skin Treatment Oil, which has helped a lot in healing her scars.

And she is even working again, as part of the ensemble cast in panto in Southend-on-Sea, Essex.

‘It feels so amazing to be back on stage after so long. I really feel like I’m starting to get my life back.’

Which is why, together, the pair of them do all they can to raise awareness for burns charities (especially the burns unit at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital — they ran a half-marathon to raise money for it), and reach out to anyone else in the same situation.

To look at Abbie today, you wouldn’t know what she has been through because her face has healed completely. But then she lifts up her long blonde hair — ‘extensions, after mine burnt’ — and shows where part of her right ear is missing. The scars run down her neck and over and under her right shoulder and arm.

Nearly a year on, they are healing well and spark mixed emotions. In a way, she is oddly proud of them.

‘They show I’ve survived something awful. I used to worry about spots, for goodness’ sake! Now I’m grateful my body is working as it did. It just has a few marks on it.’

• Abbie Quinnen is working with Nuture skincare

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