It was inside a Cape Cod tanning salon where several women say they got severe burns in a tanning bed on Thursday and Friday.
"You go there to want to look more beautiful, and you come out looking like a monster," said Anastacia Fuller.
Skin on one side of her face peeling off, second degree burns, blisters, lesions and serious pain - they don't look like themselves and they certainly don't feel like themselves, either.
"I was really dizzy and I couldn't really see," said Fuller. "And then I couldn't feel, on the right, I had tingling in my right hand to my fingers."
"I get shooting pains right here, in my underarm to my breast, to the point that I have to hold it, because it feels like somebody's stabbing me in my side," Anna Eloy said.
"I went in for eight minutes, and at six minutes, I couldn't take it, so I got out," said Bekah Lebel. "And then I went home and noticed I was really burnt immediately."
These three women went tanning at Sun Center 2000 in Hyannis, all in Bed No. 10 on Thursday and Friday. All later went to the Cape Cod Hospital emergency room when their skin started blistering on the right side of their body with disfiguring burns that they never saw coming.
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"[Someone asked me,] 'Why would you not get out of the bed if you started burning? I said, 'But I wasn't burning, otherwise I wouldn't have stayed in it," said Fuller. "No idea."
"I walked in and they told me that No. 10, the bed that I always go into, had an exposed bulb, but to not be alarmed, it was just brighter than the other ones," Eloy said.
Eloy has MS, and can't be in direct sun at the beach because she could have seizures.
Doctors' orders are 12 minutes in the tanning bed per week.
NECN reached the health department by phone and was told they received complaints against Sun Center 2000.
We tried to talk to the owner at her home and at the business, but were told to leave.
The women say they too have contacted the salon and have not gotten a full explanation for what happened.
Short-term health issues are one thing, long-term implications another.
"My doctor told me that I can't even go in the sunlight without sunscreen and clothing for seven to eight months," said Lebel. "And skin cancer and breast cancer does run in my family, highly, so I would never go tanning again."
Their greater exposure to skin cancer is on their minds, but most important, these women do not want anyone else to suffer these burns.
These three women tell us at least three other women that they know of were also burned in Bed No. 10.
We learned about 8:45 p.m. from the health board that a health inspector was there Tuesday, and shut down that tanning bed because it malfunctioned.
The tanning salon must fix the problem and report back to the town and state before using the machine again.
