KEY POINTS:
Toni Teokotai will be haunted forever by the image of her two girls screaming in agony after suffering first-degree burns from a kitchen pot.
The Christchurch mother-of-three ran to the kitchen to find 3-year-old Jayde and 18-month-old Te-Arna on the floor screaming in pain, burned by a pot of boilup from the tipped-over oven.
When she tried to cool them with wet towels, the girls' skin started to peel off their bodies.
The 25-year-old said the scene was every mother's worst nightmare.
"I came rushing to the kitchen and all I could see was what looked like a huge ball of steam," she said. "The oven was tipped upside down and the girls were screaming."
Teokotai was home alone with the two girls and her baby, Arnika. She rushed to get the girls into a cold shower and called the ambulance, but it wasn't until she was in the ambulance on the way to Christchurch Hospital that it sank in.
"It just struck me and I thought, 'Oh my gosh my babies are really quite badly burned'."
The two girls were treated at the hospital's emergency department, but were in such a serious condition they were flown to Auckland's Middlemore Hospital the following day.
Te-Arna, who suffered first-degree burns to 50 per cent of her body, remains in intensive care.
Jayde received 10 per cent burns to her face and right side of her body and is in the hospital's burns unit.
Teokotai said the accident had taken a huge emotional and physical toll on the girls.
"They're quite drugged up at the moment, but even Jayde, who's out of ICU, is not herself. She's usually really outgoing, they both are, real girly girls, but Jayde's hardly talking."
Both will need skin grafts and have to stay in hospital over Christmas.
Teokotai is not sure how the incident occurred but thinks Te-Arna might have pulled on the oven door handle causing the oven and pot to fall over.
She said the house felt "eerie" after the accident.
"I don't want to go back to that house at all. To come home to a nice new house would be great."
The tragedy caused Christchurch couple Grant and Georgina Ranger to open a Jayde and Te-Arna recovery fund at the ANZ bank.
Ranger said she wanted to do something practical for the family in their time of need.
"I know it's going to take its toll on them financially. It's just awful, if that was my kids I'd be shattered."
Donations can be made at any ANZ branch throughout the country.
