A woman's face swelled up like balloon after she suffered second and third degree burns when her pressure cooker exploded - while cooking soup.

Becky Fargo, 43, was cooking potato soup for her daughter Jadyn Young, 13, when the pressure cooker pressurized unexpectedly and exploded.

Becky, of South Webster, Ohio, USA, had set the machine to cook without pressure, something she had done several times before.

But when she tried to get the soup out, the cooker exploded leaving 2nd and 3rd degree burns on her face, chest and neck.

Becky, a restaurant manager, said: "I had used it about five-to-ten times in a two-year period and I had mostly used it for chili and other slow-cooker foods.

"There was no issue at all but something was different this time."

Becky was blown back by the blast and the boiling hot soup coated her chest, face and neck, sticking to her skin.

After running to wash the soup off, she woke her daughter up, who called for help.

She said: "I ripped my shirt off and splashed water on myself because the soup was stuck to me and it was burning.

"The explosion knocked me back four feet. It was huge, the lid broke."

When the ambulance arrived an air-lift was called as the nearest hospital with a burn unit was two hours away.

She was treated for a couple of hours and sent home with an ointment for her wounds.

Becky said: "The burns got progressively worse over the next 36 hours. My face swelled up like a balloon.

"Days four to nine were excruciating. They were open, oozing, crusty and they just burned. My chest was on fire."

The burns persisted for months, first swelling and then peeling and she was forced to take three weeks off from work to treat her injuries.