THE BRONX — The mother of an 11-year-old girl seriously burned and hospitalized after friends poured scalding water on her at a sleepover party earlier this week is asking for help to pay her daughter's medical bills.
Ebony Merritt says daughter Jamoneisha Merritt was seriously burned when what was supposed to be a fun Sunday night "turned into a nightmare" after the girl's "so-called 'friends'" poured boiling water on her as she slept, part of what Merritt called the "hot water challenge."
The hot water challenge, an internet phenomenon, has been blamed for other serious injuries and even one death.
Police said Jamoneisha was taken to Harlem Hospital after the Aug. 6 incident. Her mother wrote on her Gofundme.com page that burns to the child's face, neck, shoulders and chest are "so severe the doctors will not let her look at her injuries."
"My heart aches for the moment she has to look in the mirror at what these cruel individuals have done to her," she wrote in her plea for donations.
Merritt asks for help with what it will cost for her daughter to make a full recovery, including multiple skin graphs and plastic surgery.
The Gofundme.com page, created Thursday, had raised $765 of its $5,000 goal as of Friday afternoon.
A 12-year-old girl was arrested and charged with assault on the same day of the incident. The city's Law Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
