A popular ABC presenter has urged travellers to act with caution when using accessible bathrooms overseas after he scalded his arm in a horror mishap.
Charles Brice was taking a shower while staying at a hotel in Berlin last week ahead of covering the Paralympics Games in Paris when he placed his hand on a metal bar.
The journalist and digital producer didn’t realise the seemingly harmless structure was a mixer that carried hot water.
Mr Brice had no idea of the severe damage until he got out of the shower 15-20 minutes later and discovered his hand was covered in burns.
Blisters formed on his forearm and parts of his skin had either popped up or melted off.
His good friend, well known disability advocate Shane Hryhorec later uploaded a video to TikTok featuring the pair in that hope other travellers can avoid the same fate.
‘Don’t let this happen to you,’ Mr Hryhorec warned on his Wheel around the World account.
The pair explained that shower mixers in Europe and the UK are installed externally attached to the wall- unlike .
‘The hot water tap and the pipe that goes through to mix the hot and the cold together is actually outside the wall,’ Mr Hryhorec warned.
Shower mixers are bathroom systems that mix hot and cold water to set the right temperature and water flow.
Mr Brice was told by several pharmacies in the German capital that it would cost him thousands to get the burns treated.
‘He said, ‘Whatever you do, don’t ever lean on the mixer,’ Mr Hryhorec told Yahoo.
‘Any person with a disability or children, or whoever needs to be careful.
‘One pharmacy said it would cost him $3,000 for the material, another pharmacy said it would cost $500 for the material.’
The pair have urged Aussies not to lean on the ledge when they get in the shower.
‘So the moral of the story is, don’t shower in Europe,’ Mr Hryhorec quipped.
Mr Brice had been staying in Berlin to enjoy a brief holiday ahead of his reporting duties for the Paralympic Games, which got underway last week.
He’s a disability advocate and a public speaker, who began his career at the ABC in 2019, where he soon became familiar with News Breakfast viewers as the program’s South n correspondent.
Earlier this year, Brice packed up his life and moved to Melbourne to become a permanent member of News Breakfast team to spend the next year producing and presenting for the program.
His passion for television news came after he went through a gruelling 14 month stint in rehab following a horror motorbike crash in 2010.
Mr Brice shattered two vertebrae in his neck and completely severed his spinal cord after he hit a bumpy road during the motorcycle ride.
He flew off the bike before he landed head first on the ground.
Mr Brice is also the co-founder of the Wheel To Walk initiative, which has raised more than $300,000 for research into spinal cord injuries.