Girl, 7, Ends Up in Coma with Severe Burns After Microwaving Popular Squishy Toy

• A young girl, 7, ended up in a medically induced coma after she suffered severe burns from microwaving a popular toy

• When the toy, a squishy NeeDoh stress toy, exploded, the liquid inside burned her skin, leaving her with lasting scars

• In a statement, the company that makes the toy warns that people should not microwave it as it "may cause personal injury"

A seven-year-old girl was left in a coma after a popular squishy toy exploded, its contents burning her after she’d microwaved it.

Scarlett Selby, from Festus, Mo., was playing with a NeeDoh squishy cube — a gelatinous, squeezable toy — after sticking it in the freezer overnight.

“The next day she showed me it was rock solid and [she] was playing with it,” Scarlett’s father, Josh Selby, told Kennedy News via The New York Post. “She stuck it in the microwave. I was watching her and saw her touch it to check it wasn’t too hot when she pulled it out.”

Scarlett was reportedly copying videos she’d seen online to make the toy more pliable. Selby said that he heard Scarlett scream, and ran over to help his daughter, who was now covered in the gooey substance from inside the toy.

A representative for Schylling, the manufacturer of NeeDoh, tells PEOPLE: "Ensuring the safety of our consumers is fundamental for Schylling. We were disappointed to see there had been a trend on social media demonstrating product misuse of our NeeDoh® brand. Misusing a NeeDoh product by microwaving, heating, or freezing is dangerous and may cause injury."

The company continued: "Schylling has partnered with social media companies, such as TikTok, to remove influential content containing NeeDoh product misuse.  Additionally, Schylling has added a product warning to NeeDoh packaging and our website to help combat product misuse.  Schylling has made the Consumer Product Safety Commission aware and will continue to cooperate with them."

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Selby recalls trying to help his daughter after the explosion. “Whenever I touched her, my hand stuck to her,” he said, sharing that he “ripped her shirt off of her” because it was covered in the hot goo.

NeeDoh's website explains most of its stress toys are full of "polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) which is also used as a coating in pharmaceuticals and dietary supplements." However, Selby said his daughter was playing with a "cube." The company's "Nice Cube" is filled with "100% maltose which is like melted sugar," per the company's website.

Selby and Scarlett’s mother, Amanda Blankenship, drove to St. Louis Children’s Hospital, with Scarlett “screaming in pain.”

“It was terrible how scared she was and how much that hurt her,” said Blankenship.

Doctors were concerned about the potential for the burns around Scarlett’s mouth to swell and block her ability to breathe, so she was placed in a medically induced coma for three days. Her lips were so badly burned, she was given a feeding tube for a week, the outlet reports.

Related: Millions of Baby Shark Bath Toys Recalled After Reports of Impalement Injuries in Kids

These days, Blankenship says she’ll often catch her daughter crying while looking in the mirror because of her scars.

“She gets very self-conscious, and I’ll see her trying to cover her scar up with her shirt when we’re out in public sometimes, or she’ll come home from school and say another kid asked her about it,” Blankenship said. “I tell her she doesn’t need to be embarrassed about it. She went through a lot and it was a terrible, terrible accident.”

Skin grafts are a possibility when she’s older, Blankenship explains, sharing that “after consulting with the doctors we’re going to give her a couple of years, maybe until she’s around 12, to see how her body grows and depending on if the scar stretches out and grows with her.”

In the meantime, they’re treating the scars daily with creams and ointments, but as her mom describes, “They’re such profound scars that stick up off of her skin.”

This isn't the first reported incident of a child suffering and injury from microwaving a stress toy. An 8-year-old girl was left with scars across her face when a NeeDoh toy exploded after she put it in the microwave, as Inside Edition previously reported.

On its website, NeeDoh states: “Do NOT heat, freeze, or microwave, may cause personal injury.”

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