NET JACKASS STUNT LEFT ME LIKE THIS

0 Comments | Sunday Mirror, Aug 6, 2006 | by LOUISE HUGHES

SHE only did it because someone else dropped out... but when Shelley Mandiville joined in a stunt for a friend's joke website her life as a carefree teenager went up in flames.

In a prank inspired by the hit TV show Jackass, Mark Webb filmed himself attacking pretty blonde Shelley, 17, with Star Wars-style "lightsabres" - but using strip lights filled with BURNING PETROL.

As soon as he waved the tubes at Shelley's back they exploded into flames and she turned into a human fireball. Within seconds four layers of her skin and all of her hair had burned away and her hoodie top had melted on to her head.

She was in a coma for a week and doctors gave her only a 50-50 chance of survival. Now she is bravely trying to come to terms with spending the rest of her life with horrific, disfiguring burns.

Shelley, now 18, spoke out last night in a warning to other youngsters. "Kids think it's cool taking part in these stunts - it isn't," she said. "It's too late for me, but others can learn from my mistakes." Shelley got involved in the Jackass-style pranks after linking up with Mark, 21, at the internet meeting site Face Party. After reading how she liked the notorious show starring Johnny Knoxville, he asked her to join in stunts for his own website, Retardz.

Shelley said: "I enjoyed it. In one, I was filmed rolling downstairs in a cardboard box. It sounds stupid but the kind of thing I'd seen on Jackass. It was a buzz, a laugh."

In May 2005, Mark talked her into taking part in the lightsabre stunt. "He said a guy he'd lined up to do it had dropped out, so could I step in. He said if I did it, it would prove I was committed to Retardz and it sounded like good fun.

"He said the flames wouldn't hurt me and only my sleeve would be burnt. He said if I rolled over on the grass the flames would be extinguished.

I was going to be all right."

On the day of the stunt, Shelley, Mark and another girl headed to a secluded wood near her home town of, Hemel Hempstead, Herts.

"Mark decided to use seven lights instead of three to make it more spectacular. I was scared, but went ahead. I felt I was too far in to back out."

Shelley put on a beanie hat, two hoodies and two pairs of trousers as "protection". There was no fire extinguisher, no blankets and no buckets of water. Mark set up two video cameras and strapped seven strip lights together, filled each one with petrol and washing- up liquid, and lit the ends.

Then he swung the "sabre" at Shelley's back - and she was engulfed in flames.

"I felt a dramatic rush of air," Shelley said. "As the fire spread all over me I couldn't breathe. It felt like I was underwater, drowning.

"I fell to the floor and tried rolling over to put out the flames, but they wouldn't go out. I kept thinking, 'They've got to, please'. I could see the others shouting and panicking. I rolled into a bush and I remember Mark trying to pull off the hoodies but they were stuck to my head. I was in such a state of shock I couldn't feel any pain. It seemed as though I was on fire for ages."

Shelley, who has 10 GCSEs and wants to be a tattoist, suffered 46 per cent burns.

She was transferred to the specialist burns unit at Broomfield Hospital, Essex, and for one week she was put into an induced coma because she was in so much pain.

After seven weeks she was allowed home. She is looked after by her mum, Jeanette, best friend Rebecca Watson, and Rebecca's mum, Jill.

Her hair has now grown back and she has had three painful operations. But she has been too traumatised to leave home.

"I don't want to meet strangers because I'm worried what their reaction will be," said Shelley.

Ex-dustman Mark, also from Hemel Hempstead, suffered serious burns to his hands and face. Last month at St Albans Crown Court he was cleared of causing Shelley grievous bodily harm but was told by a judge he acted "foolishly".

Shelley, who refuses to talk to her former friend, said: "We were both stupid and naive.

He's tried talking to me, but I'm not interested."

grant.hodgson@mgn.co.uk