So I was helping my daughter and son-in-law with a rototiller. And while my only experience with a rototiller was back in 1985, when my wife and I had to turn our first house's dirt and rock surroundings into a lawn, "in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king." So part way through the experience, I had turned off this lumbering beast, and I had to pull the cord to start it up again. So I needed something to lean for leverage, and there was a nice big flat spot on top of the motor to put my left hand on for a moment.
EEEEEEE!
I've burned myself before. I've experienced second degree burns before. But never over so much area at once. Within a few seconds, I had it under cold water. And I kept it under cold water fairly continuously for the next hour. And it was, if anything, getting worse. I've mentioned the little accident with the drill press a couple of years back. (There's a slightly unpleasant picture of my finger at that location.) The pain was much worse from this, and for far longer. By the time my wife returned from the store with a burn medication, I was beginning to shiver, and feel like falling asleep--the pain was that intense--and increasingly, even cold water running over it wasn't doing the job.
Walgreen's had a product called Burn Jel Plus that took about a half hour to take full effect--but it is amazing. It had Lidocaine in it, and by the end of the day (mostly spent watching everyone putting sod on the places that I had rototilled), it wasn't too bad at all.
This picture below doesn't do full justice to how bad it felt.
Click to enlarge
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