A 10-year-old girl has suffered burns over 70% of her body after a 16-minute session at an unmanned tanning studio.
Kelly Thompson was taken to hospital within hours of leaving the tanning salon in Port Talbot, south Wales.
The girl's mother is now calling for all unmanned salons to be shut down as a matter of urgency.
Medics at the Welsh Centre for Burns and Plastic Surgery, where she was taken, said if she had remained an extra two minutes, she would have needed skin grafts. Kelly has now been warned to keep out of direct sunlight for up to 10 years.
Neath Port Talbot Council confirmed it was investigating the incident.
Kelly's mother, Sharon Hannaford, 34, said: "These sunbeds are very high-powered and there is nobody there to prevent a youngster going in and doing this. I want them shut down."
She said she has passed on photographs of the burns her daughter suffered to council health and safety officers.
Mrs Hannaford, of Mansel Street, said the incident happened during the recent Easter school holidays. "I gave Kelly some money to go to the fair with her cousin but when they got there, it was closed. As they came back, they saw the tanning salon and went in, more out of curiosity than anything."
She said her daughter spent £8 feeding the unmanned sunbed, lying underneath for 16 minutes in total.
She warned: "You can tell a child not to do something until you are blue in the face but when they see other people using these salons, and they are open to anybody, they are going to try it."
