Ensuring there was enough space on stage, checking the air con was switched off, a damp towel on standby for emergencies.

Sophie Lee had done everything right. Despite taking up fire breathing just one year before, the 22-year-old couldn’t wait to perform at a huge event in Chicago.

The show had gone perfectly until the final act. As Sophie took a deep breath in, a fireball blew back at her, her face and chest instantly going up in flames.

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It later came to light that someone had turned the air conditioning on, devastating Sophie’s performance in the most tragic of ways.

Struggling to recall the moments following the accident, the next thing she remembers is waking up in a hospital bed.

“My face just felt like a balloon,” she told the Manchester Evening News. “Like when you overfill a water balloon and you know any minute it’s going to pop. I felt like it was going to pop.”

Sophie spent a month undergoing intensive care in the USA while receiving major treatment for her burns.

Sophie, now 28, and living in Manchester city centre, can remember the moment she saw the damage to her face for the very first time. “When I started to come round, they told me I needed to shower,” she added. “This was the first time I saw the extent of how bad it was.

“They wheeled me past some mirrors and I was drowsy and hazy but I saw a really big face muscle. When I went into my room and I was a bit more myself, oh my God, I didn’t even recognise that person.

“My face was so swollen to the point where I couldn’t even open my eyes. I looked like I’d just been jumped.

“I was mashed and mangled. I just cried and asked them to take all the mirrors down.”

Sophie thought her skin was healing well until keloid scars started growing on her face. Keloids are benign tumours which grow in areas of trauma and can become much larger than the wound they are healing.

Before long, the keloid had taken over her neck and most of her face, meaning Sophie was set for even more medical treatments.

Having already endured two operations and hundreds of appointments, Sophie went on to treat the keloid with liquid nitrogen, steroid injections and even chemotherapy. She will need to monitor the scar for the rest of her life.

But despite her traumatising ordeal, the model says the accident made her reassess what’s really important in life – describing it as the best thing that’s ever happened to her.

“I want to use my platform for good and raise awareness,” Sophie, who now does motivational speaking, said. “And that’s why I shared my journey.

“The standard of beauty changed; it opened my eyes. At first, it was awful. Sometimes I still have bad days. I’m only human.

“I can’t sit here and say every day is amazing, that it’s sunshine and rainbows and the birds are singing. It’s just not real life.

“Even now, when I’m quite far along in my journey, I do get down and insecure. I don’t feel very good about my scar. But these are all parts of the process of learning to love the skin you’re in.”

Sophie can recall the moment she saw herself for the first time after the accident – fearing the damage she saw in the mirror would be with her forever.

“You think, this is me forever,” she said. “I don’t want to be ungrateful that I’ve still got my life, but it’s the things you think about because all you’ve ever known is your old face, and when that person isn’t looking back at you, it’s scary.”

As soon as she felt well enough, Sophie began posting about her accident and recovery on social media.

The posts caught the attention of Katie Piper, who suffered horrific burns herself after her ex-boyfriend attacked her with acid in 2008.

Having bonded over their experiences, Katie asked Sophie if she wanted to take part in her Unseen series, a collection of books which aims to give previously ‘unheard’ individuals a platform to tell their stories.

Sophie was among the first three authors, the others being Ellie, who has Downs Syndrome and Livi, who survived eye cancer and now has one eye.

In My Skin shares Sophie’s journey as a burn survivor and how this has shaped her into the positive role model she is today.

It touches upon vulnerability and strength, expectation and disappointment, comparison and identity as well as empowerment, courage, self-worth and ‘being enough’.

By sharing her journey from rock bottom to where she is today, Sophie says her mission for In My Skin is to encourage others that they can face the impossible and rebuild their lives. For more information, visit the link by clicking here.