Woman who survived horrific explosion with 40% burns reveals incredible transformation seven years on

A woman who suffered catastrophic third-degree burns across 40 per cent of her body has revealed what she looks like seven years on from the accident.

Abbey Alexander, 25, is from Ohio, US, and was just 18 years old when she survived an explosion that nearly took her life.

At the time, she was with her British colleague and were riding a motorcycle together in Siem Reap, Cambodia, where the two worked as teachers.

However, a gas station exploded into a giant fireball when a tanker truck transporting 440 gallons of fuel ignited, injuring more than a dozen people including Abbey and Zoe Eleftheriou, 22, from Kent.

Left with second and third-degree burns to her face and body, Abbey’s life changed forever.

But she’s glowing in her update and has revealed a few messages on Reddit about her ordeal.

Abbey Alexander was 18 when she was involved in a gas explosion (Abbey Alexander)

The mum explained to people in the comments of her post about what happened to her.

“So I got caught in the fireball while on a moped, stop dropped and rolled bc a b**** was on fire, a car hit me while I was flopping around on the ground like a fish out of water,” she said in the ‘almost 7 years post burn. Blow up glow up?’ post.

In the before and after images Abbey posted, you can see Abbey’s face being bright red as she described her skin being shaved off using what looked like a ‘cheese slicer’ by hospital staff, and also hooked up to various monitors with a tube in her mouth.

According to Abbey, this was in the immediate aftermath of the accident.

She said of her treatment: “My understanding of it is, they had to cut my face down with a cheese slicer looking thing until they got rid of all the dead tissue, then they took a tiny chunk of skin from my upper thig, turned it into a stem cells spray, and sprayed it back on and my skin was able to regenerate. I hope that kinda makes sense, one of these days I should be better at explaining it!”

She also revealed that the incident occurred in August and that she was ‘medically evacuated’ back to the states for treatment, where she says she made a faster recovery than expected – being discharged in October, instead of a predicted six months.

Explaining that her eyes no longer close properly when she sleeps and she occasionally scratches her corneas because of this, the impact on her eyes weren’t all that much.

Here's what Abbey looks like now (Abbey Alexander)

In the image of Abbey now shows her grinning with her blonde hair curled and makeup on.

While there is some scarring visible on her arms, her face appears to have healed fantastically.

Speaking with the Daily Mail in 2023 about her ordeal, Abbey explained how rough those moments at the start of her healing journey was.

She said: “I spent a long few weeks on the ventilator, I even managed to pull out my breathing tube at one point.

“I struggled with hallucinations and 'false memories' and it took a long time for me to be able to decipher what was real and what was not.”

She said it was also a struggle to leave Cambodia to seek further treatment.

She said: “Getting a medivac plane that could handle flying 23 hours was a challenge in itself but the state department did an amazing job at getting that accomplished.”

However, she also said she was ‘thriving’ in her healing, and her life may look different but she’s happy.