An unemployed man has told how he is still struggling to get his life back on track after being torched in a terrifying attack.
Chris Dozey, 45, from Penrith Road, Basingstoke, was set on fire while he was sleeping in War Memorial Park.
The estranged father-of-two received horrific burns down his right leg that needed an eight-inch skin graft from his right thigh.
Mr Dozey was targeted at 7.30pm on September 15 while lying on a park bench.
And he spoke to the Observer this week about the distressing legacy of his ordeal.
“I was watching a film the other night and there was fire involved, and I had to turn it off – it was just screwing my head up,” he said.
Mr Dozey suffers from depression and takes regular prescribed doses of the antidepressant Citalopram.
He said that on the day of the attack he had been drinking with four friends in the park after visiting vulnerable people’s charity Trinity Winchester’s drop-in centre at Camrose House on Vyne Road in the afternoon.
After falling asleep, his next memory was of being doused with water.
“When I woke up, someone was chucking fluid on me,” he said.
“I thought it was petrol, but it was water, someone – was trying to put it out. There were flames coming up my leg. Then someone got on the phone to call for a paramedic.
“Then I remember being wrapped in cling film and taken to the hospital.”
His trainers, socks and jeans melted on his leg, causing the severe burns. After being admitted to Basingstoke and North Hants Hospital, Mr Dozey was taken to receive specialist treatment at Salisbury burns unit. There, doctors grafted a layer of healthy skin from his right thigh to his severely damaged shin, ankle and foot.
Two months later, he still bears the scars and his lower leg has to be kept wrapped in antiseptic iodine patches.
Mr Dozey said he suffers from flashbacks and is struggling to come to terms with what happened.
He said: “I’ve been having nightmares about what happened. It’s just really screwed me up. I was already in depression mode and the thought that someone could do this is horrific.
“I think it was a practical joke, but that’s not a joke is it? That’s something that went badly wrong. It’s knocked me back a long way – a long way.”
No arrests have been made, but police inquiries are continuing.
