A video on TikTok went viral after a mother said her son was admitted into the burn ICU unit after suffering second-degree burns from dropping a Cup Noodles soup cup in his lap.
The initial video that Nicole (@legofam) posted has reached over 5 million views as of Friday afternoon, and she has also posted a second video responding to comments.
@legofam Only sharing to prevent this happening to anyone elses child.
♬ original sound – NicoleLego
In Nicole’s first video, she explains how her son has been in the burn ICU unit for the past three days after a dropped soup cup started melting off his skin “like a literal ice cream cone.” She adds that by the time they arrived at the hospital he “already had second-degree burns at that point.” Nicole informs the viewers she learned from this point, the burn will continue to get worse for up to 72 hours.
She then says that her son had to have surgery days later “to get pig skin on him.” Nicole explains that the pig skin is used to close the skin nerves and get them to heal.
“The literal trauma that they will have for the rest of their lives over a cup of noodles,” she says, adding to the severity of the injury. “But what I do know, is that I will never ever even think lightly about something like hot chocolate or a cup of noodles or anything like that ever again.”
Nicole explains that when they first arrived at the emergency room, the surgeons and nurses let her know that this is one of the main things that they see with children. She adds that the only reason she posted her initial video was because she never wants “a child to experience what my son has been through the past three days.”
Within the first 25 seconds of her video, Nicole says that “as a parent, you think of all the worst-case scenarios,” “like make sure they have the right car seat, make sure the bath water is not too hot, but I had no idea the amount of mundane things that we do everyday could literally alter your child’s life forever.”
After the first video was posted, Nicole posted a second video responding to a comment that said the incident was her fault. The comment read, “Not to be messed up but I 100% feel like something like that could happen and I wouldn’t give my kid something that hot. Your fault 100%”
Nicole responds back saying she was not in the room when this happened. “I did not make the cup of noodles, I was putting my toddler down for a nap, I had no idea that he had done this. It literally took him two, three minutes to happen, to put it in the microwave.”
Nicole expresses how in the middle of everything that is happening in her life right now, she posted the video “to warn other parents about how dangerous those are, that way they can talk to their kids about it.”
“But thanks for your comment,” she adds, “I hope that made you feel better.”
Nicole told viewers in the comments that she is thankful for all of the kind words, prayers, and thoughts for her son, E.
The University of Chicago Medicine’s Burn Center conducted a study on pediatric patients who were admitted with scald injuries caused between the years of 2010 and 2022. “Of the 790 total cases reviewed by the team,” UChicago Medicine wrote, “31% were attributed to instant noodles.” Sebastian Vrouwe, MD, assistant professor of surgery at UChicago Medicine, said the hope of the study is to “develop the groundwork for future burn prevention programming, as essentially all childhood burns are in some way preventable.”
Nicole and Nissin Cup Noodles did not respond to a request for comment from the Daily Dot via direct message.