A young mum was horrified after she was left looking like a “Beluga whale” following a day in the sun.
Emily Hutchison, 29, from Balintore, Easter Ross, is warning people to use protective sun cream whenever they are sunbathing – even if it’s in Scotland.
Emily was pregnant with her son Marcus, now five months, when she went to the beach at home in Balintore.
She made sure her seven-year-old daughter Sienna was covered in suncream but completely forgot about herself, reports the Daily Record.
After their day at the beach Emily returned home and says she didn't feel burnt.
But her partner Dean Kernaghan, 31, quickly realised something was wrong as Emily's forehead was left swollen and soon her entire face swelled up in a severe reaction.
Emily said: “I was just sitting on the beach. I was there for a few hours and didn’t apply suncream which was very silly of me.
“It was a really hot day and where I was sitting the sun was shining right down on my forehead.
“I never felt like I was burnt but my head was a bit tight and later began to get really sore.
“I just didn’t realise I had been in the sun too long.”
But when she got home, her partner Dean Kernaghan, 31, said to her: “What’s wrong with your head? You look like Beluga whale.”
Over the course of the next few hours, the swelling moved down her face, causing her eyes and nose to swell too.
In a panic, she consulted her doctor who said she had taken a severe reaction to the sun and prescribed antihistamines.
Emily said: “I didn’t even know that could happen. I had never heard of it.”
By the time she went in to do her shift in Tesco that evening, she said she was “almost unrecognisable” and was unable to go to work the following day because she was in pain with the swelling.
She warned other sun worshippers like herself: “Be aware of how hot it is, make sure you apply sun cream and make sure you have something like a sun hat to cover your head.
“Even on cloudy days in Scotland, the sun can still get through and you can get burned. You should be very careful at the beach because there is often a breeze which disguises how hot it really is.”
Cancer Research UK says nine in 10 cases of melanoma, which is the most serious type of skin cancer, can be prevented through enjoying the sun safely and avoiding sunbeds.
