Everyone knows by now that sunburns should be avoided, and that we should protect our skin from UV damage as best as we can. In fact, as Refinery29 reports, one really bad sunburn can alter your skin and cause mutations in your genes, which could eventually lead to skin cancer. Just five sunburns can double your risk for melanoma, or skin cancer. So one Texan guy's really bad head sunburn is a cautionary tale for all of us.
Cade Huckabay decided to shave his head, then spent some time in the unforgiving sun sans sunscreen. As you might've guessed, the boy burned.
"One time I shaved my head, got severely sunburned, and swelled up just a little bit," he wrote on Twitter.
Usually his head is protected with a hat or his hair, he told Yahoo. So this kind of exposure was unprecedented — and clearly powerful. (FYI, a sunburn is essentially when UV exposure causes inflammation to the skin.)
In a later comment on Twitter, Huckabay admitted that he was in the sun for 14 hours.
So it was alarming when he showed everyone on Twitter what happened when he poked his really swollen head.
On Twitter, he mentioned how the dent would stay there for 30 minutes. Let's just repeat that for emphasis: 30. Minutes.
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Obviously, everyone and their mothers were like, "OMG."
Oh, and "WTF."
Some folks have never seen anything like this before.
"THIS IS TERRIFYING," someone else commented.
Huckabay's head quickly became the butt of many memes.
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And some people shared their own horrific severe sunburn-induced swelling experiences.
In fact, some people's burns were so gnarly that sunscreen brand Banana Boat chimed in, saying that peeps should DM them and they could "assist [them] further." You know it's bad when you need a helping hand by a straight-up sunscreen company.
Although Huckabay said that some Advil and ice "got the job done," his story is definitely one reason to slather on sunscreen.
But don't worry, Huckabay did learn his lesson, and will always wear a hat when doing yard work. Probably for the best.
