14 DAY TRIAL // Three years ago, jazz singer Erin McNeill, fell sound asleep after returning home from a gig – several weeks later, she would wake up in a hospital room covered in third-degree burns. Today, she's started her journey that will teach her to love herself again.
Erin has decided to enter an international beauty pageant, just so she can shut online trolls up and prove, once and for all, that beauty really is only skin deep, the Daily Mail reports.
She's still very young but she's already been through hell – and back again.
As if learning to live with herself after the terrible house fire that left her with scars both physical and psychological wasn't enough, she's also had to deal with cyber-bullying.
A Facebook page was especially set up just to let her know what an ugly human being she is, the British tab writes.
For the past couple of years, Erin has been struggling to prove her haters wrong and, at the same time, regain confidence in herself.
“Already named Miss International Scotland, the 21-year-old will compete against other contestants from around the world at the final in Chicago next month,” the Mail says.
The aim is to prove that beauty is skin deep and that other attributes also make a woman worthy of a Miss title, even one as scarred as Erin is.
“Discrimination is not acceptable. I want to show people that it is wrong to judge people on the way they look. Maybe in the process I can begin to accept myself again,” she says.
Erin will never be able to sing again, as the fire caused irreparable damage to her vocal chords. She now works as a volunteer with the fire service and is dating a boy who also works there.
Her story has already moved millions, especially since her case was touch and go for a while. Doctors were only able to save her limbs thanks to a revolutionary intervention.
“Erin's arms and chest were burned to the bone and the rest of her body left red-raw and blistered. Doctors even considered amputating her arms but eventually performed pioneering surgery using extracts of shark skin, which tricks the body into growing new skin cells,” the Mail reports.
“After three weeks doctors stapled on healthy skin, like a graft and the new cells helped her arms to heal and stop leaking fluid,” says the same media outlet.