"Blinded by the light!"

Way back in the fall of 9five, I was starting my sophomore year of high school. Several friends and I went on a beach camp out with the scouts to el capitan st beach. During this time in our lives, several of us were really getting into surfing, and this was gonna provide us the perfect opportunity to try some night surfing. After school got out on Friday, we all raced home, packed our bags and then headed off to meet up with the rest of the scouts. Shortly after meeting up, and packing all our gear into the vehicles, we were off. The drive seemed to take forever, we were all excited that we were gonna get to stay at the beach overnight. It was almost dark when we finally arrived. We found our spot, unloaded the vehicles and began to set up camp. By the time everything was unloaded and camp was set up, it was well beyond dark. After setting up camp Steve and I decided to die our hair red with that Halloween spray die stuff, not completely sure why, most likely just cause we could. A little later several of us (john, Dave, Steve, and i) decided to go down to the beach to check out the waves to see if they would be big enough to surf. When we got to the beach, I realized that I was the only one who had brought a flashlight. Now at the time, the in thing was sun glasses, and not just any sun glasses, but the kind with the small circle lenses that were tinted either blue or green, even though they didn’t really block much sun. so I found myself standing on a dark beach in the middle of the night, wearing cheesy sunglasses, while I used a small flashlight to look at the waves. After a few minutes of this, I noticed I was the only one watching the waves. I turned around to see what everyone else was up to. It was at this time that I noticed that john had a large pillow case with him, and they were all gathered in a small circle trying to light something on fire. I walked up to the group and asked them what they were trying to light, to which Dave replied “black powder”. I then remarked “doesn’t that stuff blow up when you light it?' to which I received the reply “no, you pour it in a line, and then when you light it, it follows the trail... just like on the road runner cartoons”. Of course any time someone uses a cartoon where the main character is constantly blown up or crushed as a reference it should have automatically sent up all sorts of red warning flares. I then asked what was in the pillow case, to which john responded “bullets, black powder, matches, and some fireworks”. Now to most of you, this might seem like things we should not have been able to get our hands on. Johns dad was big into making civil war replica black powder rifles, and ammunition. For us, it only seemed normal that all of this stuff could be scrounged together, and find its way to a camp out with us. So without a second thought, I stood and watched as they continued to attempt to light the powder on fire. As I stood there watching, it immediately became clear that the moisture in the sand was what was preventing the powder from lighting. Every time the match got close to the sand, it would go out. After I pointed this out, it was decided the best course of action would be to put a match in the sand with the head sticking up about to inches, and then pour the powder on top of it. Now the container that held the black powder was one of those giant metal containers like the ones that hold lacquer thinner and other such things. It held about a gallon of powder although it was probably listed in something like liters or ounces on the side. All of us huddled around the match in the sand, with me shining my light for all to see while Dave grabbed the container to pour the powder. Just as Dave was about to pour I took my sunglasses off so that I could see better. He then began to pour the powder onto the light match. With all of our combined experience with fire, to this day I am still amazed that none of us realized how this was going to play out. As soon as the first grains of black powder met the fire, a lightening fast reaction sent the flame from one grain to the next, following the trail (just like I was told) up into the container instantly lighting it all on fire and causing a giant explosion! Out of reflex, all of us tried to turn away from the blast as soon as we saw the giant fireball. I have blown a lot of things up, and caught a lot of things on fire, but this still stands as the loudest and brightest explosion I have ever been apart of. Immediately I was deaf and blind. Gradually I noticed the ringing in my ears, as the colorful spots gradually faded from my vision. As we all regained our vision, Steve and I noticed that johns hair and some of his clothes were on fire. We immediately began slapping him with our hands to put the flames out. Once that was done we all began to assess our injuries, each of us yelling (partly cause we were still partially deaf, and part adrenaline) “how bad am I!”. At this time I began to hear Dave yelling “im maimed!, im maimed for life!” we all looked down at his hand that had been holding the metal container, which he was waiving around while he was freaking out. His thumb was noticeably not where it belonged. It was pointing almost straight back and was closer to his wrist than it was to any of his other fingers. As we were trying to calm Dave down, we all started looking at each other and realizing how bad we all looked. Everyone was wondering if they looked as bad as the guy they were looking at, except Steve who lucked out and did not have the missing flesh and charred skin that covered the rest of our faces. It did not take long for us to feel the intense burning sensation in our newly received wounds. It was immediately decided that we need to wash our injuries out. So like any good victim not fully thinking, john starts taking off his clothes and running to the ocean. I yell out for him to stop, to which he replies “but its water”. I shout to him, that it is salt water! He gives me a blank look, like its not registering. So I remind him of the old childhood jokes about whats grosser than gross- sliding down a razor blade and landing in a tub of salt water. I then see his facial expression change as he grasps what he was about to do. Some one shouts out that they see a bathroom off in the distance, so we make our way towards it. When we get there john asks if its a girls bathroom, to which I reply that at the moment I don’t think it really matters. We rush inside and immediately begin flushing our faces with the water from the faucet to cool the intense burning sensation. We each take turns with the 2 faucets and looking into the crappy steel scratched up beach mirrors trying to see how bad we really look. During this fiasco, I hear Dave yell that he is going to stick his head in the toilet and that he needs someone to flush it for him. I don’t give it much thought, till I hear the toilet flush. I then call him back to the sink. After about fifteen minutes of this we decide we have the pain under control and that we should head back to camp. On the way back, we run into a small group of people walking on the beach headed the direction we were coming from. They ask us if we saw and heard the explosion, to which we reply that we did. They then proceed to tell us they saw it from about a mile down the beach. They ask were it happened. I point in the general direction and tell them im not sure exactly where it was. We then hurry off back to camp. During the rest of the way back, the burning pain starts to return and gradually gets worse. We discover that fanning our faces cools them down to a tolerable level. After a while Dave decides running around in circles is much more effective. As we make our way back, we talk about what we are going to tell people, to make sure we all have our story straight. We decide that we are gonna try and pass it off as mud/ dirt on our faces from playing in the sand (I know, we should have been able to come up with a much better story). So we stroll into camp and pretend like nothing is wrong. I keep expecting someone to ask us why are faces look dirty, but no one does. After a few minutes of trying to act somewhat normal, Dave cannot take the pain anymore and starts running around like a chicken with his head cut off. Even thought that is somewhat normal behavior for Dave I realize that we are not gonna be able to pull this off, I find Glenn and tell him that we blew ourselves up while we were at the beach. At first he thinks I am joking, I point at Dave and tell him why he is freaking out. Glenn then pulls me over under one of the lanterns to get a better look. The heat from the lantern is intense and magnified by the burns. All of the scout leaders converge and quickly come up with a plan of action. I don’t remember who, but one of them has a cell phone (which was pretty rare back then) and calls to find out where the nearest emergency room is. All of us involved and a couple of the leaders pile into Wayne ashers old forest service green suburban that I think was from the seventies. We then head off down the road. Its not long before we realize the inside of the suburban is incredibly warm, which translates into unbearably hot for those of us that are burned. We quickly roll down all the windows which provides a short relief. Soon after, the rolled down windows are not longer doing the trick, so we resort to acting like a bunch of dogs sticking our heads out the windows as we drive down the road in the middle of the night.

After what seems like an eternity, we pull up to this small building in a dark parking lot. We make our way to the door, finding the temperature unbearable once we step inside. Dave, john, and i soon find ourselves lying on gurneys while needles and IV's are being stuck in our arms for fluids and pain killers. Gradually whatever good stuff they decided to pump into us starts to work, and we no longer act like possessed fools trying to run around the room screaming how much it burns. 2 of us were given blessings, I cant remember which one of the others turned it down, I just remember how it struck me as odd at the time that they would turn it down. Eventually it was decided that we needed to be transported to the Sherman oaks burn center, which was a long ways away. I was pretty excited at this since they told us we were going to go by helicopter. After what seemed life an eternity of waiting, we were informed that plans had changed, we would ride in an ambulance instead. At this point I was so tired and all I wanted to do was sleep, but that was not an option. They had me walk out to the ambulance carrying my bag of fluids that was hooked up to the IV in my arm and climb into the back of the ambulance. I had the luxury of sitting on the most uncomfortable seat in the world. After I sat down, the brought john out in a wheel chair and put him in. shortly after that Dave was brought out and loaded into the back on his gurney. Both of them passed out pretty quickly on the drive, while I woke up with every bump on the road. I tried to talk to the medic in the back, and asked questions about how bad we looked, and the odds of us healing. He was not interested in my conversation choice, and would not give me a straight answer. After what felt like forever we arrived at the burn center. We were taken out of the ambulance, I was put in a wheel chair and we were all pushed down this not so well lit hallway. I’m not sure where Dave went, but john and I both ended up in this room that had several metal tables with what appeared to be shower heads over them. Several older Scottish nurses came in and helped us onto the tables. As I lay down, I could hear the nurses telling john he needed to take off his clothes, he was not having it and kept refusing. Eventually I think they cut them off him. The nurse then turned on the water and began washing me down, trying to clean off the burned areas. As soon as the water hit the top of my head, what was left of the red hair die began to run down onto the table. I heard the nurse scream and start yelling for help, saying something about a head wound and blood. It was then that I remembered the dye. I quickly informed her what it was, which calmed her down and she called back for whoever she had called for to never mind it was a false alarm. At some point during the washing process I passed out. I came to a couple hours later in a small room, then passed out again. The next time I awoke my dad was also in the room, my first thought was what is he doing here? I asked how much trouble we were in, and the then passed out again. Sometime later, I was moved to a different room. I was now sharing a room with john, Dave was in his own room just down the hall. For those of you who have had extended stays at the hospital, you know there are 4 different things that will occupy your time. 1. the actual medical part, 2. visitors, 3. recreation, and 4. the food.

Lots of friends and family trickled in to see us the first few days. My mom and step dad flew up as soon as they were told what had happened. They came by several times a day to see how I was. John and daves families were also around as often as they could be.

Eventually the doctor told us that we had 3^rd and 4^th degree burns (I didn’t even know there was 4^th degree, but if your gonna set the bar, set it high!), and that the constant burning that had been so painful was all the small grains of black powder that had lodged into our skin was still slowly burning deeper. All the air we kept forcing on our faces to help cool them off was actually continuing to fuel the powders slow burn, and that we were gonna need skin grafts to fix all the damage. Before we could get the grafts, there were some things that needed to be done, like take blood. Every day, several times a day they came in a took blood. The other thing that needed to be done, was to remove the dead charred skin (at least what was left of it). This was done by taking a steel wool type material and scrubbing it all off. After we were all cleaned up, they put giant bandages on us, covering the majority of our face and head. They were kind enough to leave eye and mouth holes. Our stay at the burn center was filled with daily visits from family and friends, watching lots of movies, and of course the awesome game room. The game room had a small table, and a couple of chairs that you could use to play board games or cards. There were also several arcade games, that were free! There was Mrs pacman (yep I set the high score!) and a couple others, one of them was kinda like marble madness on the original Nintendo. During our stay, I was the one with the most unrestricted movement. I pretty much went wherever I wanted as long as I pushed my IV stand with me. I explored the hallways, went and met other folks that were also stuck in the burn unit. There was this one kid who was a few rooms down, who had climbed a power pole on a dare and grabbed the wires. The electricity cooked him pretty good, and he lost both legs and one arm. There was also a truck driver who had rolled his rig and got trapped inside. His rig had caught fire and he was burned pretty good. Other times I made my way to daves room to see how he was doing. They didn’t give john and i a lot of details, but he was not doing as well as john and I. Dave was rarely conscious and when he was awake was usually in a lot of pain. Occasionally john joined me in the game room, when he had the strength or when there was someone around to help him get down the hallway.

One night the doctor came in and told us that the next day they were gonna do the grafts. He asked if I knew what grafting was, to which I replied taking skin off of one part of the body to put it on another. He told me that was usually what was done, but they were gonna do something different with us. All the blood they had taken from us had gone down to a lab in the basement, where it was mixed with cadaver skin in a petrie dish and used to grow new skin. This skin was what was going to be used for our grafts. At the time I had no idea that such things were even possible! The down side to the surgery being the next day, meant no more food till after it was over. The next morning they came bright and early and carted me off the surgery room. They gave me a brief explanation of how the surgery would work and that they were gonna put me out for it. I asked if they were gonna use gas, or the shot (I think they might have been a little shocked at how much I knew about operating procedures)? They told me they were gonna use the gas, to which I quickly informed them that the gas would not work on me cause my body would reject it and I would just starting coughing and choking from lack of air, they would be better off just using the shot. Of course they didn’t listen. After about 30 seconds I ripped the mask off cause I couldn’t breathe and felt like I was suffocating. The nurse then gave me the shot. After I had been given the shot, I did the whole I told you so routine, while several of the doctors laughed as I gradually faded out. When I came to, they informed me that the surgery had been a success. I would still have to keep the bandages on for a while, and would have to spend several hours a day in a hyperbearic chamber to help with the healing process. Most important, I was not suppose to touch my face for fear of messing up the grafts before it was properly healed. Of course one of the first things I asked was if I could eat. The doctor gave us the go ahead to eat, and after some questions from our family and friends gave the OK for us to eat anything we could get our hands on, especially milkshakes. From that point on I was averaging 6 milkshakes a day from various places including carls jr.. john and I ate good, folks brought us pizza and shakes pretty regular. All of this food did not take place of the regular meals provided by the hospital. On one particular morning, the nurse came in and asked what I wanted for breakfast out of the available choices. I choose the one with the scrambled eggs, since I cant stand eggs any other way except hard boiled. After a few minutes she returned with my tray of food. Once it was placed in front of me, I immediately grabbed the eggs, pulled the lid off only to find not so scrambled eggs! They looked like they had been cooked for about 30 seconds tops. It was just a gooey mess of undercooked slime. If I would have eaten anything yet, it would have come right back up. (for those of you who have ever wondered why I wont eat eggs unless I make them myself, now you know.) I didn’t even bother touching the rest of the meal. That ended my breakfast experience for the day.

I’m sure many of you are wondering what on earth a hyperbearic chamber is. The ones I used were a giant glass tube, similar to those you see in sci-fi movies where people sleep during long deep space voyages, only ours were laying down instead of standing up. These tubes are just wide enough for a person to fit into, and since they are clear glass it is hard to tell the boundaries once you are inside, so I constantly hit my head whenever I tried to look around. There was really only room to just lay there fully extended, no room to bend your knees or turn on your side. Once one is inside, they seal it off and pump in pure oxygen, not the crap we normally breathe. This speeds up the healing process. It feels like your in an airplane and your ears need to pop constantly. They had several of these in a giant room, and they were kind enough to hook up speakers to them so that while they had us trapped inside them we could watch movies. Well it was more like listen to movies since you couldn’t really adjust yourself to see the screen for too long without straining your neck. During our many sessions in these, john and I made it through all 3 star wars (that’s all there was at the time), Indiana Jones, and several other older movies.

One night, I woke up to the sound of music and laughter. I climbed out of my hospital bed and headed out into the hallway to see what was going on. I was surprised to see a bunch of patients dancing with the nurses up and down the hallway. I don’t know what the cause for celebration was, but it lasted for several hours into the night. A couple of days later the doctor came in and took all my awesome bandages off to get a look at how well I was healing. Everyone was quite surprised to see that there were no scars. I was then given permission to take my first shower in weeks, on the condition that I not touch my face. They even sent some old man to watch me and make sure I didn’t. A couple days later I was released from the burn center. I was given special lotion and sunblock that I had to use several times a day, and I was not to go out into the sunlight without at least a hat on. They told me I would have to do all this for a year! Eventually john and Dave were also released with the same instructions. It was an interesting and intense experience. I became closer to the siggard and yadon families from this trip than I had ever expected to. It definitely made the next year very tedious.