A beauty queen nearly died after she suffered a rare reaction to eye drops that made her skin fall off. Marian Adejokun, 24, was left in a coma for a month after the one-in-a-million illness, known as Stevens-Johnson syndrome. The reaction caused the top layer of her skin to shed and die.

Mum Remi Adejokun said: “I hate to say that but there were so many blisters her skin was just tearing off. “I looked at her and I was so scared she was going to burst open. I saw death knocking at my daughter’s door, all because of an eye drop.”

The nightmare began five years ago when Marian, from Thornton Heath, south London, complained of an itchy eye, and her GP directed her to the chemist for some eye drops. She woke up the following morning with lumps all over her body and was rushed to hospital, where her skin began to shed.

Marian was soon after put into a medically induced coma, and doctors told her mum she may not survive the ordeal.

The brave young woman, who once came second in a Miss Teen Africa beauty pageant, said: “Unknown to me, I had a rare, deadly allergy to eye drops and shockingly, after using it, all of my skin peeled off from head to toe.”