White Island honeymooner had three hours of surgery on his burns

Wednesday, 11 December 2019

A new husband on a honeymoon cruise around New Zealand needed three hours of surgery to treat his burns after he was injured on Whakaari/White Island.

Matt Urey, 36, has extensive injuries and will need more skin grafts and plastic surgery. His wife, Lauren, is reportedly sedated in a different hospital.

Mum Janet Urey said she had spoken to her son and he was able to talk, was taking fluids and eating jelly.

The couple had been on the Ovation of the Seas, and visited the volcano on Monday after the ship docked in Tauranga.

**READ MORE:

* Whakaari: Bedlam at Whakatāne Hospital as worker describes eruption aftermath

* Newlyweds rushed from Whakaari/White Island with severe burns

* Whakaari/White Island eruption: 1.2 million square cm of skin needed to treat burns victims**

Ohio-based TV station WFMJ.com's 21 News spoke to Janet Urey before she boarded a plane at Pittsburgh International Airport to fly to New Zealand on a flight arranged by Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines.

She said Matt's worst burns were on his hands but he was burned pretty much everywhere, including his abdomen, back, legs and his chin.

21 News said Lauren, 32, was in a different hospital, and reportedly sedated and intubated. Both the newlyweds will need more surgery.

Lauren had called her parents just hours before visiting White Island, telling them how excited the couple were about their action-packed day. 

'She said they were going to the volcano,' Lauren's mother Barbara Barham told The Washington Post. 'My husband was joking around and said, 'I hope it's not a live volcano.''

Urey said Matt told her he and Lauren had just come down from the volcano's crater when it erupted and were able to shelter behind a large rock.

'He told me they had already come down from the volcano when it started to erupt,' Urey told 21 News.

'They were able to take some shelter behind a large rock, 10 minutes it could have meant life or death for them, but luckily they were already down the volcano close to the water, so they sheltered themselves a little bit.

'They already had been provided with respirators so they didn't breathe in all the ash.'

Matt's burns were 'a little worse than we had hoped'.

Six people are confirmed to have died in the eruption, while another eight are missing and believed to be dead.

Police say conditions on the island are still too dangerous, with significant risk of a further eruption, for the bodies to be recovered.