A mother was still in the hospital Tuesday after she survived being burned in a kitchen explosion in Imperial Beach last week.

Pointing to her bandaged head and neck, Diana Hernandez says the worst of her burn wounds were suffered on her ear, neck and chest. She is now forever scarred after surviving a fire that gutted her apartment on Georgia Street.

Hernandez says she started cooking breakfast for her kids just before 7 a.m. on Nov. 12. When she tried to light the stove, she says she heard it clicking. So when it didn’t light, she said she grabbed a lighter to spark it, and that’s when disaster struck.

"That’s when I feel the explosion. My chest and my face. My hair being on fire,” Hernandez said.

She says she ran to the bathroom and extinguished herself in the shower, after sufferin

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