My Burn Photos

On June 30, 2000, I was burned 2nd and 3rd degree as a result of a grease fire and this is my story. I tell this story and share my photos in hopes of educating and helping to prevent someone else from going through what I had to go through. At the bottom of this page, there is an index of my photos. You may click on any picture to see an enlargement of that photo. ***(This page was developed and published on Nov 15th, 2000.)

It was a warm beautiful summer day, and I was cooking hot dogs out on the grill and tater tots on the stove. I had started grease on the kitchen stove to deep-fry the tater tots. I had left the pan on high and went outside to turn hot dogs out on the grill. While I was outside turning the hot dogs, the mother of a child that my daughter had been playing with approached me. We begin chit chatting and then I saw a big black puff of smoke rolling out of my front door. I ran back to the apartment and before my eyes was a fire blazing out of control. Without a second thought, I grabbed a pair of shorts from the dirty clothes, wrapped it around the handle, grabbed the pan, and proceeded to run with it out my front door. When I threw the pan down in the grass, the fire was smothered out; but as a result of my actions and not thinking straight, I was burnt badly . My entire left arm from the tips of my fingers to almost my shoulder was burnt by the blaze from the fire. While running with the pan, the grease had spilt and burnt the top of my entire left foot, including my toes and the side of my left leg up to my knee. (At the bottom, you will see pictures of the burns.)

I noticed the child's mother I had been chit-chatting with outside staring at me in complete horror. She said "Hon, you are burnt, I think you need to go to the hospital." I just looked at the burns and the skin rolling down my leg that was collecting at my ankle and said, "You know, I think your right. I'll go get my purse and car keys." Up to this point, I never felt the pain from the burns. I knew I was burnt, but the seriousness of the whole ordeal had not set in with me. The child's mother firmly stated, "NO, you need an ambulance and you need to sit down." I had my cordless phone in my hand and begin trying to dial 911. I couldn't use my left hand to dial plus my phone wasn't working. This is when the reality of the issue begin to set in and I panicked once more.

I rushed to my neighbor's apartment, banging on her door screaming to help me, and she called an ambulance. While waiting for the ambulance, my neighbor poured cold water on my burns. It was then that the pain became most apparent. I tried to call my husband at work, but Freightliner (the company my husband works for) does not allow phone calls for any reason. I begin crying uncontrollable to the security guard on the phone, but he stated would not get my husband and asked me "do you want him to loose his job?" At this point, I felt I couldn't afford my husband getting fired so I decided against pushing the issue. My neighbor, however, felt the situation was serious enough and called Freightliner again until one guard decided it was serious enough to pass the message along.

When the ambulance arrived, I was wrapped in a burn sheet, which was nothing more than a sheet with soaked in LOTS of cold sterilized water. I was sitting on my neighbor's porch and it had four steep steps. Four fireman picked up the chair I was sitting in and lowered me to the ground and put me on a gurney. It was then I was taken to the local hospital approximately 2 miles from my house. Unfortunately, I live in a very small town in North Carolina, USA and they don't deal with too many burns, if any at all.

Once I was at the hospital, the nurse kept me well soaked in the burn sheet. The nurse had come in to give me a shot of morphine because I had gone into shock at this point. I felt extremely cold and as if I couldn't move, although I was trembling uncontrollably. The nurses had five layers of blankets on me, but I still felt as if I was freezing. After the first shot of morphine, I calmed down a little, until I felt the pain again of the burns. I was all alone and afraid. I had no clue where I was going to live because I was certain that our landlord would evict us for causing the accident. I kept apologizing to everyone around me for my stupidity.

After my husband arrived, two nurses came into the cornered off room, smeared Silvidane cream on my burns, wrapped me in gauze, and sent me home. My discharge instructions were to change my dressings 3 to 4 times a day and to get as much rest as I could for the next 3 weeks.

The next morning, when my husband changed my gauze, my entire hand was swollen about 10 times it normal size. I immediately called my family doctor, but she happened to be on vacation. The doctor on call instructed me to go to Frye Regional Medical Center in Hickory, NC. I was seen by a very caring and knowledgeable doctor there right away. The doctor put me in hydrotherapy and referred me to a plastic surgeon.

Water therapy began at 8am sharp the next morning (which happened to be Sunday.) Water therapy began quite easy. I had always loved sitting in a whirlpool, but there was going to be a drawback...I would not have it so easy after debridement. (Debride means to peel back all the old burnt skin to allow the new skin to grow in its place.) The first two sessions they did not debride me. My third session was when they begin debridement.

Debridement was extremely painful and traumatic to both my physical and mental health. The physical therapist took a pair of tweezers and a pair of scissors and proceeded to pull the old skin back and then cut it if it did not pull off without tugging on it. On my arm, I had huge blisters and a gelatin layer underneath them. They peeled back the skin and wiped the gelatin off with a piece of 4X4 gauze.

The fourth session, when I had to get back in the water tank with no skin on my wounds. The water tank by the way contained iodized salt that was used to help clean out the wounds and keep infection from setting in. I experienced the worst pain in my entire life that day. I had partial 3rd degree burns in my foot and hand meaning I still had some nerve endings and I could still sense pain, but the burn was so deep, skin could not regenerate on its own. I can not begin to describe the shear hell and pain I went through that day and the many days that followed. Just imagine, if you are not a burn survivor or if you have not had to have water therapy, having an open wound and pouring salt water on it. Now imagine having a good portion of your body with that same open wound and having to sit in a whirlpool with jets for 20 minutes in that salt water.

The therapists at Frye Regional Medical Center were the absolute greatest. It is not their fault I had to undergo such torture. They did everything they could to support me and keep my spirits up throughout this traumatic time in my life.

Ok time for a bit of humor. During this time period, I had yet to have a bath because I was not to get my wounds or gauze wet outside of my salt baths. I know you are probably going "OH GROSS!" Well so was I too! :-) I begin to reek of a horrible stench. My hair was knotted and oily. I went and had all my hair cut off to the top of my neck and practically against my head. My mother, who happened to be staying with me at the time, decided come hell or high water, it was TIME for a bath. We took a table bench from my table and straddled it across the tub. We started with my hair. I sat on the bench and propped my foot on the side of the tub and held my arm straight up in the air. I leaned back while my mother poured water on my head and washed and rinsed my hair (what little bit I had left anyway.) Next came the body....I started washing and stood up with my bad foot hanging out and washed the right side of my body. After washing my "hinney," I went to sit down on the bench and it begin sliding out from under me!!! Next thing I knew, the bench flew out of the tub and down I fell into the water. My foot and elbow landed on the side of the tub, and a HUGE wall of water surged out over the tub and splashed my mother and soaked the floor. There must have been 1 to 2 inches of water in the floor. It is so amazing that somehow I did not get water on my bandages and how they landed on the side of the tub.

After 2 weeks of water therapy, my arm and part of my hand had healed. However, my leg, foot, my first two fingers, and the rest of my hand had not healed. It was decided by my plastic surgeon on Sunday, July 16th, that I would receive skin grafts that following Tuesday, July 18th. I went in Tuesday morning, was prepped, operated on, then discharged all in one afternoon. I was not allowed out of bed for 2 weeks for any reason. I also had not been allowed the luxury of a bath since the last excursion in the bathtub. After 2 weeks, the bandages came off. The grafts had all taken and were healing wonderfully! My doctor put me back in occupational therapy and ordered Jobst compression garments for me. You think this is the end of my story??? Nope, sorry....

I now was facing another problem. Cigna insurance WOULD NOT pay for Jobst compression garments. They deemed these pressure garments as being cosmetic and therefore making them not medical necessary. Out of frustration, I told them to go to hell and gave up my fight. Because of the stress I was being put under and the trauma I had went through, I was beginning to experience severe anxiety attacks and manic depression. I also begin having horrible nightmares about my skin melting off and fire chasing me. I was also dealing with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and it was hitting me hard! I hit a deep slump and felt as if I didn't want to live anymore. I felt like everyone, "God", my friends, my teachers, all of them hated me and were disgusted when they looked at me. I felt I didn't deserve to live. Why should I deserve to live looking the way I did and dealing with the way I felt?

I didn't like the feeling of despair and hating myself and feeling as if I didn't deserve to live. So, one night I begin my plan and the implementation of my suicide. I had pain pills that were given to me to survive the pain of my burns. I sat down in my bedroom floor and cried for 2 hours. It was then I decided I didn't wish to live or to bear the pain any longer of being deformed, gawked at, and talked about. I held a bottle of Percorsets in my hand and cried harder as I begin to count out my pills. How many would it take...1, 2, 3, 4?? I wasn't sure so I decided the whole bottle would be enough. At about the time I got up the nerve to start swallowing pills, my cat walked into my bedroom, sat down on my lap and begin purring loud. (BTW, my cat is 15lbs and a HUGE fluff ball.) I pushed him away and took one pill. He sat back down on my lap again and did the same thing over again. I pushed him away again and he immediately returned, purrs and all. I begin stroking my cat and he loved up to my neck and purred louder than he had ever purred before. It was then that I realized I didn't want to die, but I did want to stop the pain and hatred I felt inside.

I begin looking for Support Groups in my area online and ran across "Burn Survivors Online." I thought I would give it a shot and it was the best thing for me! The were people there understood what I was going through and even knew of some ways to push the issue with the insurance company. One person, Wil, advised me to call the Phoenix Burn Society and gave me the number. Now even they are even trying to help me out.

So here I am.... 3 months since my inital burn. I won't lie and say I feel normal and happy, cause I don't feel those things. I am STILL battling Cigna to pay for my Jobst and through the assistance of all my friends online and the Phoenix Burn Society, I am a little closer to making them pay. I have to battle the feelings daily of being deformed and incompetent, and one day I hope I can say "I love me and no matter what you say or if you point your finger at me, you can't hurt me!" But for now, I deal with my new body image. It's not an easy road for any burn survivor. I was more fortunate than some other burn survivors; I was not burned that badly and I did not loose any of my grafts.

I wish to thank you for visiting and taking your time to read to my story. It is my hope that you were helped or educated in some manner with my story. If nothing else, I pray it has taught you one very valuable lesson: although no one person knows what they would do if faced in my situation and it is easier for people to say "you should have let the fire department handle it," do not ever try to run with a pan of grease that is on fire. The fire will win and you will lose. I lost very little and have gained a whole lot. I gained new friends through Burn Survivors Online. I have gained a new respect for fire and what it can do. I have gained a new respect for myself as a whole. And last, but not least, I have gained a closer bond with my friends and family that were there for me when I needed them.

If you are a burn survivor or the family member of a burn survivor and need support, please join us at Burn Survivors Online. This is an online support group that meets on Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday at 8pm. Just click on the link above and follow the link to the chat room. If you want more information on the Phoenix Burn Society, you can contact them at 1-800-888-BURN(2876) or you can visit them online.