A woman who warns of the dangers of sun damage leaves TikTok viewers stunned in shocking twist ending

A WOMAN warning others to avoid sun loungers shared a video with a shocking twist.

Nickie Murtagh, 36, posted on TikTok with a filter to show the sun damage on her skin.

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She said, “There you have it. Stay away from the tanning beds and use SPF girls, they don’t lie.”

But while Nickie led us to believe that the worst part was the pigmentation on her face, she had more to show viewers.

Nickie, from New Maldon, Surrey, said: “While we’re at it, let’s check out the skin cancer,” before tilting her scalp towards the camera.

At the top of her head was a bald spot the size of a ping pong ball.

Nickie previously told The Sun that she had a gaping “crater” on her head after being diagnosed with skin cancer.

Doctors removed a cancerous lump and the skin around it during a two-hour procedure in December 2018.

A skin graft was taken from her thigh – which Nickie shows in the TikTok video – to cover the hole in her head.

“Afterward, I felt like there was a sizeable crater on my head,” Nickie said.

“When I held up my phone and snapped a picture so I could see what it looked like, I was shocked at how much of my scalp had been removed.

“Then the hole was filled with tissue from my leg and a bandage applied while it healed.

“But fortunately, it was good news that the tissue upon examination was free of cancer.”

After her surgery, however, the mother-of-three said she felt “depressed” and feared she was a “ticking time bomb”.

The childminder is now dedicated to raising awareness of the damage caused by sun exposure and sunbeds.

Nickie admits that in her 20s she went on tanning beds for about eight to 12 minutes a session.

But she would never exceed the recommended usage, so she didn’t think much about it.

She said she often “forgot to put sunscreen on” and was “too vain to wear hats.”

Nickie said in 2019: “I knew all about staying safe from the sun. But my failure to apply this knowledge to myself has left a hole in my head and scars on my leg.

“At first I always thought I wasn’t the ‘typical’ skin cancer patient who vacationed abroad a lot and was a sun worshiper.

“But now I realize that there is no such thing as a typical skin cancer patient.

“We all need to be sun and skin conscious and adults need to take just as much care as children do.

“From now on, I will always fear the sun. I want to shout from the rooftops about the damage it’s done to my skin – and my sanity. The scars aren’t just on the outside.”

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In 2016, Nickie noticed a bald spot the size of a tiny fingernail along the exposed parting of her blonde hair.

“I booked an appointment with my GP and was told I have a small cyst which I shouldn’t worry about and could safely be left untreated.

“But over the next two years it slowly grew. After all, it was the size of a onepence coin.”

Nickie was eventually diagnosed with basal cell carcinoma (BCC) after her friends and family urged her to get the strange lump checked again.

BCC is one of the most common forms of non-melanoma skin cancer.

According to the Mayo Clinic, it typically appears as a skin-colored bump that can appear pearly and shiny.

On tan and black skin, the bump often looks brown or shiny black.

Other signs of BCC are; a flat, scaly patch with a raised rim, a waxy, scar-like lesion, and a dark lesion with a slightly raised, translucent rim.

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