Brave mum recalls surviving 33,000 volt shock that burnt her skin off in hot air balloon disaster

When Rebecca Hay was flown up 2,000 feet above ground in a hot air balloon, she snapped a smiling selfie blissfully unaware of the horror that would soon follow.

Within minutes the light aircraft had struck power lines, causing a 33,000 volt shock which set her alight and resulted in severe burns to her skin and body.

She has painfully remembered the moment she feared she was going to die, thinking her arm had been ‘blown off’ and noticing her leggings and the basket she was in were violently ablaze around her.

But a decade on from the traumatic event, the 32-year-old mum from Northampton has chosen to speak out about the ordeal.

This time, it’s part of her brave bid to raise awareness about the aftermath, the mental toll it had on her and how to cope, as well as inspire others to overcome their own trauma and grief.

Aged 22 at the time, the air balloon disaster struck on 22 May 2016 and left her with severe burns to her body that required months of rehabilitation and treatment.

"I was terrified I was going to die"

Speaking to LADbible about the ordeal, the mum-of-one recalled: “I could see the power lines coming up and it was obvious we were going to hit.

“Instinct got me into a brace position, I held the rope handles, bent my knees slightly and shut my eyes.

“The electricity made a loud fizzing, cracking noise, and I could feel it through my body.

“It made every muscle contract. I was screaming through a clamped shut jaw, my head was thrown back stretching my neck as far as it would go.

“Still terrified I was going to die, I managed to get myself to my feet, and then realised the basket was on fire, and so were my leggings.”

The balloon eventually came down in a field in Earls Barton and emergency services rushed to the scene, where Rebecca was airlifted to hospital.

“I remember thinking my arm had been blown off by the force of the electricity because I couldn't feel it,” she said.

"The events of that morning have been branded into my brain, but so have the thoughts of what could have happened, like the fact we could have been blown to pieces hundreds if not thousands of feet in the air.

“There were moments that were so tragic it was almost comical, like tripping over cow sh*** while badly burnt and running away like some sort of action hero.

“I was going into hypovolemic shock and I needed to get to hospital quickly. I remember not being sure I was going to make it.

“I remember asking in hospital whether I was going to die. Nobody gave me the reassuring answer I was looking for.”

"The burns treatment was horrific"

With severe skin burns, Rebecca was then rushed to hospital in Birmingham. The skin on her face, hands, legs, elbows and buttocks had all been scorched.

She had repeated dressings to her skin as well as skin grafts and constant pain relief to cope. Her mum had to wash her. Her partner Brett had to dress her wounds.

“The burns treatment afterwards was brutal. Truly horrific,” she explained.

“I had over 20 per cent full thickness burns. And no skin on my buttocks or elbows which made it very difficult to get out of bed to the toilet. I relied on everyone’s help and I stopped being an independent 22-year-old woman.”

"People kept calling me brave and strong but I didn't feel either. I was just compliant, most of the time.

“People told me what needed doing and I did it, because what was the alternative? Dying would have been easier. Being alive and being okay turned out to be two completely different things.”

Following the ordeal, Rachel underwent therapy. She was diagnosed with PTSD, and later Bipolar type 1.

She also had experiences of mania and felt that everything around her was ‘potentially dangerous’. Her family feared the old version of her would never come back.

She is now speaking out to show the reality of the aftermath following the incident and how she eventually found a coping mechanism in journalling everything.

“I got extremely good at looking fine to the outside world. Fake it till you make it vibes,” she said. “Behind closed doors that was far from the truth and I was at battle with my brain.

“Everything felt potentially dangerous. Fires, noises, flying, things being left switched on, busy places, the general public, being in a car, just life in general. It was exhausting.

“A few years later, bipolar came along. I was diagnosed bipolar type 1 after suffering an acute psychotic episode where I was so poorly that I was hospitalised for months.

“My family genuinely didn't know whether the version of me they knew would come back.

“My mental health is delicate, and I have to look after it. I’ve learnt to be an expert in self awareness, and try every day to stay well so I can be a good mum - that’s my most important goal now.

“And then there are the lows, when getting showered and dressed can feel like a full day's work but motherhood carries on anyway.

“That's probably the reality people don't see. You can be very mentally unwell and still make packed lunches.”

Discussing the management of her PTSD, she added: “I’m on lithium, which gives me tremors and I have to have my lithium levels checked regularly to make sure I am not toxic.

“Sleep matters enormously, it’s the first indication for me that something’s not right.

“I can sleep for England and nap on demand, so when I can function on just a few hours and start getting fixated on something new and random, I have to have a quiet word with myself and start to take note of any patterns in case and decide whether to escalate as a cause for concern.

“That's one of the stranger parts of being stable with bipolar. You don't necessarily get to enjoy a brilliant mood unquestioningly anymore. It's something I live with. Sometimes very well, sometimes less elegantly.

“I'm still dealing with PTSD too. That's never completely disappeared. Only little things can trigger, like a world pandemic, war, national alerts going off on your phone like a modern day bomb siren.”

Rebecca's experience will appear in new book

As she began to pick up the pieces of what happened, she began journaling and found a love for writing.

Now, her years of notes are becoming a memoir about her experience which has had ‘more storylines than Eastenders’. The book is named A Sky Full of Scars - Hot Air, Hard Truths and Hope Anyway.

She also regularly posts to a Substack page about coping through it all and the realities of her everyday life as a mother.

Although the painful scars are still there, the mum says she has decided to start living differently, now travelling the world in a camper with her family after selling their home.

“I have good days, and bad days,” she explained. “I cope well most of the time, but sometimes I don’t. I cry a lot, get p***ed off with the world a lot. None of it has disappeared because I decided to start living differently.

“The difference is that I don't want to make my whole life smaller around the possibility of becoming unwell anymore.

“I'm also not sitting around waiting to be cured before I'm allowed to have a life. I have accepted this is probably the best my mental health is going to get so I work with what I’ve got.

“Writing started because my head was full. I needed to make space so I could enjoy life rather than getting tangled up in trauma.

“There were all these seemingly separate things - the accident, PTSD, mental illness, pregnancy loss, motherhood, psychosis, being sectioned, bipolar, physical health problems, work, family.

“The last ten years of my life have had more storylines than Eastenders, the drama didn't stop at hot air balloon accident.

‘My book is about everything that came before and after, and the weird reality that life keeps happening even after the event everybody else thinks should define you. It has helped me understand myself, unpick what was tangled up and tie ends together to form a timeline.

“I’ve remembered things that have made me laugh. I have written about things that have made me cry so hard I felt like I was reliving it all over again. But the feeling of having it all in one place, out of my head and on paper, has been the best therapy I have ever had.”

When asked what she wants people to take away from the book, Rebecca added: “I want the book to do something very simple. I don’t want somebody to finish it and think, “What an inspiration.” I’d much rather they think, “Thank f***. Somebody else gets it.”

“The accident is incredibly unusual, most of the rest of my life isn't. Very few people know what it's like to be electrocuted in a hot air balloon, but quite a lot know what it's like to smile and say they're fine while absolutely not being fine.

“If oversharing helps somebody feel slightly less weird, then finally there is a practical use for my inability to shut up.

"The 22-year-old lying burned in a field is part of me, and my scars will always be there. But am I going to let them stop me living my life? Not anymore. They've given me a story to tell, so I'm glad i made it here to the point where I'm finally able to share it.

"I suppose the thing I most want to get across is that I'm not trying to turn surviving something horrific into my entire identity.

"What happens when the newspapers stop writing about it, everybody congratulates you for surviving, and then you have to go home and actually be the person who survived? That's the story I want to tell."

She now shares life updates to her Instagram, travelling Europe with husband Brett and son Harley in a camper.

"I don't remember consciously deciding, 'Right, trauma, you've had your turn, get out of my way'," she said. "It was much less profound than that. I just became increasingly p**** off with how small my world had become.

"Then we took Harley to Los Angeles because he was obsessed with Cars and Brett sent me a reel of Cars Land at Disney California and we thought, 'yolo.'

"I was terrified. I didn't want to fly, it was very traumatic for me, but I went anyway.

"Eventually Brett and I looked at the life we had and realised the conventional version wasn't making us particularly happy. So naturally we responded in a calm, measured way by selling our house, leaving our jobs and buying a gigantic American fifth-wheel caravan.

"Now we travel around Europe with Harley, who I home educate, while I write, manage bipolar, deal with various health issues that no-one can get to the bottom of, and attempt to build several businesses, teaching myself how to build a website, and figure out how to get my book published.

"It can look very dreamy on Instagram, and sometimes it is. But sometimes we're arguing about sewage, the WiFi doesn't work and I'm teaching Year One maths at a campsite table to a 6-year-old who doesn't want to engage in counting in twos.

"But it's ours, and I've spent a long time waiting to feel well enough to live properly. Eventually, I realised I might be waiting forever and nobody's got time for that."