After a day at the beach and night of amusement park rides in Myrtle Beach, S.C., 13-year-old Mason Adams, of Ringgold, Ga., asked his mom if he could get a henna tattoo at one of the shops on the city’s main drag.
His mother, Dusty Murphy, a nurse at T.C. Thompson Children’s Hospital, agreed to what was supposed to be a temporary tattoo. Instead, the Fox motorcross brand logo and Mason’s last name printed on his right shoulder will become a permanent scar.
Within days of getting the tattoo, Mason had an intense reaction to a chemical in the henna, resulting in a blistering and swollen wound.
“It was real sore when I lifted my arm. I couldn’t touch my head. It itched, it burned,” he said.
After two weeks and a prescription antibiotic and steroid, his arm is beginning to heal but doctors say there’s a 90 percent chance the scar will be with him for life, as well as a lifelong susceptibility to the dye, which is found in hair dye and some other products.