A Kansas City, Mo., mom is demanding answers after she says her 7-year-old son was attacked by their neighbor’s 8-year-old and set on fire with nail-polish remover.
Ashley Lyons says that her son Julien was doused in the nail-polish remover before being lit on fire with a candle on Aug. 6 at the Hawthorne Place apartment complex.
“I received a call...saying that my son was being rushed to the hospital. They said a child drowned my son in fingernail polish remover and lit him on fire, on purpose,” Lyons, who was not at home at the time, told KTRK.
Julien was so severely burned that his internal organs were also impacted.
“The burns were so bad that they had to go in immediately and do surgery. They had to scrape his face and all of his skin,” Lyons said.
It is not clear why the other child allegedly doused Julien and set him on fire.
“My son kept saying ‘Stop. What are you doing?’ Julien kept telling him to leave him alone and that’s when he decided to burn him,” Lyons told the Kansas City Star.
Lyons claimed that the other boy’s mother was present when the incident happened but did nothing to help her son. It was another neighbor who ran out with a wet towel and rolled Julien on the ground.
“It’s a very painful process for him,” Lyons said of her son. “There is a lot of anxiety. There is a lot of anger. There is a lot of confusion. He’s trying to maintain the best that he can, for a 7-year-old.”
Thankfully, Lyons also said that Julien is doing better than expected, though he still has a long road to full recovery.
“For the rest of his life. They’re talking anywhere from two to three years just to get his skin to grow back. That’s not including the pigment or the color of his skin,” Lyons told KTRK.
But the mother is still worried about how she is going to keep her son place if she has to return to the apartment complex where they live.
“The hospital is trying to release him soon, and were coming up with a home plan, but there’s no home plan. This is not safe,” Lyons said.
A GoFundMe for Julien’s recovery and home plan has been set up and has exceeded it’s $50,000 in a mere four days.