I FORGOT THE PLUG WAS ON

She wanted to create unusual art - instead Vanessa Grimbeek ended up electrocuting herself, leaving her hands severely mutilated

- JANA VAN DER MERWE

SHE looks sadly at her mutilated hands, which once created enchanting works of art and embellished the clothes she wore.

Now Vanessa Grimbeek of Henties Bay in Namibia has only three fingers on her right hand. “My thumb and forefinger have been amputated,” the 16-year-old says. “The tip of my little finger was also cut off.”

She points to the splint bandage on her left hand. “And I have very little function in this hand,” she says. The pinky and tips of her ring and middle finger on her left hand also had to be amputated.

Vanessa’s life changed in a blinding flash 10 months ago when she was electrocuted in a freak accident – and she now wants her story to serve as a warning to others.

“I had such beautiful hands,” she says. “My fingers were long and slim. People used to tell me I should play the piano.”

But Vanessa was always more interested in art and woodwork. Three months before the accident, she saw an art technique known as fractal wood burning on social media. It involves coating a thin piece of wood with a saltwater solution, then connecting jumper cables to either end of the wood and connecting the cables through a transformer to an electric socket.

The current runs through the damp wood to create etchings, which spread like the veins of tree branches through the wood. Videos of the technique were circulated widely through Tik-Tok but it’s highly controversial – and even deadly. A middle-aged couple from New Zealand were recently shocked to death attempting it.