CHAPEL HILL, NC (WECT) - A man from Wilmington is recovering from injuries he sustained after a gel candle exploded on him.
Mike Leonard is being treated in Chapel Hill's Burn Unit. Wednesday, surgeons removed skin from his thigh that was damaged by flames and infection.
Leonard said he was lighting a gel candle designed to keep away mosquitos when the gel exploded and set his body on fire.
The product was a Napa Home and Garden Gel Candle.
"It just threw this huge ball of flame," he said. "The fumes are what exploded. It just caused this huge ball of flame to my pants and it caught my shirt and my pants on fire. I dropped and rolled but I couldn't get it to go out it kept flaring back up and finally I was able to get my shirt and pants off with my hands and that's how I got my hands burnt."
Leonard isn't the first person from our area to be injured by this product.
Last year, we told you about Dr. Scott Colquhoun, who suffered similar injuries after a Napa gel candle exploded on him.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission recalled the gel product in June 2011 after more than two dozen people were injured by it.
Leonard says his wife bought the gel at Bed, Bath and Beyond and the Transplanted Garden within the past year.
Neither store has the product on its shelves today.
The owners of the Transplanted Garden said they removed it from shelves after the recall.
Now, Leonard wants to warn those who may have bought this before it was pulled from shelves.
"People obviously don't know that it's been recalled," he said. "They apparently don't know how dangerous it is. I obviously wouldn't have used it if I had known it. I'm worried that other people, seeing that we are in a seasonal beach area here and with mosquitoes popping out – that people are going to have this and don't even know what they got."
The company that made the gel is now out of business.
Consumers who bought the product should immediately stop using the gel and return all bottles or jugs to the retailer where it was purchased for a refund.
Copyright 2012 WECT. All rights reserved.
Surgeons removed skin from Mike Leonard's thigh that was damaged by flames and infection. (Source: Mike Leonard)
