Burned

        I grew up in western Kansas. At one point moved into a small farm house about five miles south of a little town called Cheney. That is where we lived when this story took place. Our property was called the 'JUIT RANCH', although it wasn’t much of a ranch any more when we lived there. There was a rundown chicken house, a rundown shed and a rundown barn. The house was originally a three bedroom one story house with a large attic. By the time my family moved in, the middle of the attic had been converted into a finished bedroom. The house was so old it had a coal room in the basement.1

        I loved to climb the huge oak, elm and cedar trees scattered about. The best part of the property was the large pasture. I had many adventures in that pasture. I often swam and fished in the pond and creek. Dad raised Appaloosa horses. He also trained horse so I grew up riding, although I had a couple of ponies growing up my first horse was a Morgan horse given to my dad as payment for training a horse for someone. I helped train him and he was my best friend. I would often go find him and the other horses in the pasture and jump on to ride him bareback with no bridle. I would simply sit on him and enjoy the ride. He loved to run. If another horse ran for any reason the race was on. He wouldn’t stop until he was in the lead. Ah, I had many wonderful times growing up.2

        Unfortunately I had many tragedies also. This particular one took place in 1978. I turned thirteen that summer. We always burned our trash in a pile out back of the house. Most folks did. I was old enough to start taking care of it on my own. The only problem was I enjoyed the job a little too much. I developed an unhealthy fascination of fire. I often played with the things I was burning. I won’t go into details of how because I don’t want to give any young readers any bad ideas.3

        One day when I carried out the trash it was my misfortune to decide to use a little gasoline to help light the small pile of paper sacks full of trash. I filled a small tuna can half full and headed back to the burn pile. That’s not very much gas, mind you, probably a fourth of a cup to a third at the most. I started one sack on fire and then had the bright idea to make a line of gas from one of the other sacks to the bottom of the burning one so that when it burned far enough the line of gas would burn over and light the other sack. What I didn’t know was that the fire had already spread to the bottom of the bag on the inside. When I poured the gas onto the sack the fire leapt through the brown paper and raced up the stream into the tuna can.  I was instantly holding a small can of burning liquid.4

        I panicked. Fear caused me to throw the can to get rid of it. When I did the gas spilled out and a fire ball landed on my chest. My chest was engulfed in flames. I instinctively ran a short distance, the worst thing you can do. The added air fanned the flames which were consuming my flesh. I tripped and fell to the ground. I believe it was one of my guardian angels which tripped me. Once on the ground I be thrashing and rolling about. I was fortunate enough for the flames to go out. The synthetic shirt I was wearing had melted to my chest. Its remainders hung from my skin. I had also been unfortunate enough to have rolled into a sticker patch. I now had second and third degree burns covering my chest and part of my stomach. To make matters worse there was synthetic material and huge stickers embedded in it. 5

        I was in shock. I ran to the house and burst inside through the back door. I ran into the living room clutching the remains of my shirt in front of my chest. Tears poured from my eyes. “Please, don’t be mad at me Momma, please don’t be mad at me, please don’t be mad at me,” I repeated hysterically over and over. 6

        “Honey, it’s ok, that’s not one of your good shirts.” She soothed kindly without understanding.7

        “I’m sorry Momma, I’m sorry Momma.” I stammered as I began to shake.8

        “Brian it’s OK.” She said as she reached up to see how badly I had torn my shirt this time.9

        I shrieked as she pulled the shirt loose from my burnt flesh without realizing what had happened. The look of terror that filled her eyes when she saw my chest was equaled only by the horror which filled her voice when she screamed.10

        “Tom help!” She screamed in horror. “Tom Help!” She screamed again. “Oh my God.” She groaned. Tears now flowed as heavily from her eyes as they did from my own.11

        “What’s the matter?” Dad yelled as he ran into the room.12

        “Brian’s been burned!” She screamed, her voice dripping with the pain she felt for me.13

        “Oh dear God,” my dad uttered when he caught sight of my chest.14

        “Cold water!” My mom said. “We have to put him in the bath tub!” She yelled as dad was scooping me up in his arms. “We have to cool him down!” She hollered as he shot out of the room. In the blink of an eye he had passed through the short hallway and gently placed me in the old claw footed tub.15

        “I’m afraid this is going to hurt son,” he apologized as he reached to turn on the cold water.16

        I nodded in shocked and uttered a low groan in response. I was completely unprepared for the new surge of pain that swept through my body as the cold water hit my massive burns. I screamed in agony. 17

        “I’m sorry son.” My dad apologized as held me in place so the cold water could flow across the giant wound cover my chest.18

        I gritted my teeth and did my best not to fight to get away. Even in shock I knew that my dad would never cause me that much pain unless he had no choice. I was only dimly aware of the sobs of my mom in the background.19

        “Grab a clean towel.” Dad told her over her shoulder. “We have to get him to the hospital as fast as we can.”20

         After saturating the towel with cold water my dad gently place it on my chest. He then picked me up once more and was on the move again.21

        “Grab my keys.” Dad told Mom as he brushed past her and headed out of the house. “Crap, I’m sorry!” He said after bumping my head on the kitchen doorway.22

        I was in so much pain from my burns I didn’t understand why he was apologizing to me. ‘Why’s he sorry? This is all, my fault.’ I thought deliriously.23

        In no time we were flying down the road in Dad’s nineteen sixty nine Ford pickup truck. I was half lying across the seat with my head in my mom’s lap. Each little movement was shear agony. I was only aware of their conversation on a semi conscious level.24

        “Tom, why don’t you take the highway?” Mom asked, as we flew down the dirt road we lived on.25

        “This is faster.” Dad answered simply.26

        “But the bumps are jarring him, the highway is smoother.” Mom persuaded.27

        “I’m sorry it’s hurting him. I really am.” Dad groaned. “But there will be traffic on the highway. This will be faster. We have to get to the hospital as fast as possible. He’s in shock.” Dad explained pushing his old truck a little harder.28

        “He’s not going, he’s not, oh my God, Tom, he’s not going to die is he?” Mom stammered, her tears returning to flood down her cheeks and drop onto my face like rain where they joined the torrents which streamed from my eyes.29

        “NO!” Dad said forcefully. “He’s a fighter Honey. He’ll make it.” He added, doing his best to sound confident.30

        I don’t remember most of the thirty or so mile trip to the nearest hospital. I probably passed out from the pain. The next thing I was vaguely aware of was hearing strange voices.31

        “Lay him down,” a voice said. “What happened?” They asked.32

        “We don’t know.” Dad answered solemnly.33

        “He just came running into the house this way.” Mom said, fighting back her tears.34

        “It looks pretty severe,” another said.35

        “We’re going to have to clean that out.” I heard someone say.36

        “We have to cool him down first.” The first voice said.37

        “Is he going to live?” Mom asked shakily.38

        “I told you he’s going to live.” Dad answered abruptly.39

        I now wonder if he was trying to convince her or himself.40

        “He’s right. It looks like he’s going to live as long as no infection sets” the voice was interrupted.41

        “Here, let’s get these on him.” someone said just before laying an ice cold towel across my charred chest.42

        I screamed at the top of my lungs as a new shock wave of pain raced through my raw nerve endings. Before long my body shook from the sheer cold of the towels. Even my legs kicked violently. I moaned from the pain which racked my mind.43

        “I, ww w anttt a nnew t t towel pp ppllease.” I managed to stutter through chattering teeth.44

        “I can’t believe he’s asking for a new one.” One of the voices said.45

        “I know. We usually have to fight with them to keep them on.” Another answered quietly before placing a new ice cold towel onto my raw chest.46

        “I think we should start cleaning it out.” I heard a voice say.47

        “Give him just a little longer.” The one who had just placed the towel on my chest said.48

        When they were ready to clean out my enormous burns I was past the point of being aware of what was going on. I’m glad for that. I don’t even want to imagine how much worse the pain was that swamped my mind while the picked out the large stickers, chunks of melted synthetic material and masses of flesh which were to burnt to heal.49

        The next thing I was aware of was a nurse asking if there was anything she could get for me.50

        “I’m thirsty, can I have some water?” I asked groggily.51

        “Of course you may.” She answered kindly.52

        “Do you want a bottle of pop?” My dad asked.53

        My eyes filled with tears as I shook my head yes. I knew I was pretty in pretty bad shape if Dad was buying me a bottle of pop without me even begging.54

        “What flavor do you want?” He asked as he fished around in his pocket for change. I was too stunned to think straight so I didn’t answer.55

        “Get him a strawberry. He likes strawberry.” Mom said from beside me.56

        At that point I became aware she was holding my hand. What seemed like an eternity later I was released from the emergency room of the hospital and allowed to go home. It wasn’t long before I began to complain to my mom that the tape holding the gauze over my chest was hurting.57

        “What do you mean it’s hurting?” She asked, as she pushed my hair out of my eyes.58

        “It burns.” I answered simply.59

        “Let me see.” Mom said as she lifted my arm to look at the tape stuck to my side. “Tom, we have to go back,” she added quietly.60

        “What’s wrong?” Dad asked as he slowed the truck down.61

        “He’s extremely red everywhere the tape is.” Mom explained.62

        We returned to the hospital where after a long wait we were taken back to see a nurse. My parents were informed that I was having an allergic reaction to the tape. The nurse brought in an odd looking net tube and using a pair of scissors made a couple of quick snips.63

        “What’s that?” I asked curiously as she laid it on the small metal table.64

        “Let’s get that nasty tape off and I’ll show you.” She said with a wink.65

        After carefully removing the medical tape she cleaned the all of the burns the tape had left and covered them with medicine and then covered my chest and the new burns with clean gauze.66

        “I think you’re going to like this.” She said with a smile as she picked up the strange looking net tube. She then wriggled the tube up over her fingers the way you would a sock when preparing to put it on. “Hands up!” She said with a light laugh, pointing her covered hands at me like a double barreled gun. When I gingerly raised my arms she skillfully worked the stretchy tube over me until it formed a net shirt which held the gauze gently in place. She had been right. I thought that was pretty cool.67

        I’d heard someone telling my parents to keep my burns clean but it didn’t occur to me what they were saying. Over the course of my recovery I had to frequently endure the excruciating pain of my mom scrubbing my exposed nerve endings to keep my burns clean. This is a necessary to fight the risk of infection. Infection is deadly to burn victims. 68

        Needless to say I never played with fire again. That happened thirty years ago and to this day thinking about that day and the pain I caused my parents brings tears to my eyes. Hearing about someone being burned makes my skin crawl. It was close to twenty years before I could bear to watch someone getting burned in a movie even though I knew it wasn’t real. Watching someone get burned in a movie still makes me feel sick to my stomach. 69

        I was very lucky. The worst spots were small enough that I didn’t have to have skin grafts. My chest healed very well. For years though when I went out in the sun I would tan with small white splotches all over my chest and the upper part of my stomach where there was still scar tissue. Even these have almost disappeared. Only if you looked very closely would you find the evidence of that brush with death. That’s still a lot more than you would see compared to the some of the other times I almost died, like when I jumped in the back of a wheat truck full of wheat; dropped off of a twenty foot bridge; fell through the ice on the creek; had appendicitis; caught something I can’t pronounce which ate my stomach liner or when was hit by a drunk driver on my motorcycle. Of course I have a lot more obvious scars from when I dropped my handgun and shot myself. However, those are stories for another time...