A fry-up lover who accidentally splashed hot oil in his face while cooking breakfast fears the painful burns will leave him with a permanent 'gravy chin'.
Josh Thomond had been preparing a cooked breakfast, which he does every Saturday and Sunday morning, when he dropped a sausage into a "puddle" of hot oil in the pan.
The oil splashed onto the 25-year-old's chin and neck as he shouted in pain, and the burns he has been left with as the oil dripped down his face have been compared to a "gravy chin" by one of his friends - a nickname Josh fears will stick if he's left with scars.
After 10 minutes of running the burns under cold water, Josh put his pain aside and finished his breakfast as he didn't wanted to miss out on a treasured fry-up.
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The accounts assistant from Leigh, Greater Manchester, says his girlfriend Sarah Quinn and her six-year-old daughter Rosie Gordon heard him scream in pain from another room, adding that he was very lucky it didn't go in his eyes.
Josh said: "I was making breakfast in the morning, cooking some hash browns and sausages.
"I made my girlfriend's first and all the fat from the sausages came out in the pan so when I came to do mine there was a puddle of oil in the pan.
"The sausages were all stuck together so I was cutting them up over the pan and accidentally dropped one in from chest height and the oil splashed up straight onto my face.
"I had ducked down to try and catch it so I ended up making it even worse for myself by being closer to the pan as it splashed up.
"The first minute I was in shock and my skin was reacting with the heat but then it really started burning and stinging and became quite painful.
"I posted about it on Facebook with photos of the burns and had some funny comments - mates said it looked like a 'gravy chin'.
"People said it looked worse in person which made me worry about it scarring.
"I know I'm not going to look like Beckham or anything but I don't want it to be there every time I look in the mirror or meet someone new and have them ask what it is."
Following the accident, Sarah Googled the best treatment and Josh started cupping handfuls of cold water onto the burned areas before returning to his fry-up, saying he was gutted to have overcooked the hash browns in the commotion.
A "magic" cream he was prescribed after calling 111 helped to ease the pain and redness, and Josh says he now feels fortunate the accident didn't jeopardise his dream job.
"I play professional snooker 25 hours a week and it's my dream career so I was really worried about my eyes getting burnt because obviously you can't play snooker without your eyes," he said.
"Thankfully it was just my chin mainly and I got prescribed a really good cream that made it clear up in no time - it was like in a Disney movie when you sprinkle dust on something and it disappears.
"You can still see it a bit, it's just like some redness around my chin but it's not too bad, you wouldn't notice straight away if I didn't mention it."
Josh, who cooks a fry up of bacon, sausage and hash brown bagel every weekend morning "without fail", says he hasn't been put off his favourite breakfast despite the painful experience.
"I always drain the pan now and put the oil in a cup to cool down and I don't cut the sausages over the pan either, I've learnt my lesson the hard way," he added.
