[VIDEO] Woman, 20, accuses husband of burning her over an SMS

A 20-year-old woman suffers severe pain after her husband allegedly burned her with a kerosene stove and boiling soup in September last year.

Pauline Mugure has serious burn wounds. She was undergoing treatment, but she cannot get further treatment as doctors are on strike and she cannot afford private hospital fees.

Burning stove explodes on her body

The mother of one says Francis Kimani, a boda boda operator, burned her after a quarrel over a text message.

“He had come home with meat and while I was cooking it he took my phone and found a text message in which a male friend had invited me for a cup of tea.

We quarrelled and after a few minutes he picked the stove, threw it at me and it exploded on my upper body,” Mugure said.

She was taken to Thika Level 5 Hospital and then referred to Kenyatta National Hospital, where she remained in a coma for one and a half months.

“I was told by my relatives that he [Francis] used to visit me while I was in a coma, but has never returned after I became conscious,” Mugure said.

She later learnt that Francis moved from their house in Kabati and took their daughter with him.

Discharged before healing

Due to the ongoing doctor’s strike, which enters Day 52 today, Mugure was discharged from KNH despite the physical pain.

“When the strike started [on December 5 last year], I was discharged and asked to go heal at home,” she said.

The discharge summary says Mugure had sustained 20 degree burns and 30 per cent inhalation injury. She also developed glottic stenosis—narrowing of the vocal cords—and a tracheostomy tube was surgically inserted in her windpipe, through the neck, to create a hole that helps her breathe.

Mugure has not gone back for clinics since her discharge.

 Cries all night due to the pain

Twenty year old Pauline Mugure who was burned with a stove by her husband after a quarrel over a text message with a neighbor, Juliet Murungi and a good samaritan, Consolata Muuru who took her to hospital yesterday. Photo/Monicah Mwangi

When the Star visited her at her grandmother’s home in Witeithie, Thika, a friend was applying a white cream on her open wounds as she groaned in pain.

Her mother Jane Wanjiku, a casual labourer, said Mugure cries all night due to the pain.

“We don’t sleep because she is in so much pain. I wish doctors could go back to work and help reduce her suffering,” she said.

A good samaritan, Consolata Muuru, whose daughter died last year following domestic violence, said she will take Mugure to MP Shah Hospital.

The hospital requires a deposit of Sh150,000 for her admission, she said.

“I have to go with her and her mother to my place as we try to raise the money needed for her admission,” Muuru said.

She urged both men and women to leave abusive relationships.

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