Part 2 of the Burn Story

 The truth is I havnt read this not in almost 4 years. Its been on facebook, public, for anyone to see for almost 4 years. I really never needed to read the note, I knew what happened, I was there. I can replay all the events in my mind, the entire weekend. 


That friday was the fall formal at comverse and I was so excited. My roomies Christina and Kelly and I had all found the perfect dresses and we were so excited to go to the dace. 


here are some pictures of the dance:

I remember being so happy

me and chase

smiles all around

Christina & I

We were so happy

and this is the last photo of me before the burn, there is no scare on my ankle:

I remember it was a wonderful night. We danced and we looked great and had a wonderful time. I felt so skinny and beautiful, and it was just a wonderful magical night. Little did I know it was the last night I would be truly happy for another year. 


That was saturday night, and sunday afternoon I was burned. 


I think the hardest part of all of this is the fact that I lied. I lied in the note, I lied in the story I told people, I lied to my friends and my parents. I shouldnt have, but I did. I lied to protect chase, I lied because I was scared to tell the truth.

Paragraph by paragraph Im going to finally tell the world the truth:

As some, but not all of you know, I got burned very badly by gas on sunday evening. I just wanted to put the entire story on here so people would know what happened.

Chase and his uncle Earnest were woking in the yard on Chases truck. I was inside studying and I decided to go and get some help on my lines. I walked outside and stood a few feet away from a partialy full gas can. I watched as Earnest pured gas into the carborator to get the truck to run. The all of a sudden the truck backfired, causing a flame to jump out of the truck. It lit the excess gas on fire and also caught the small trail of gas from the truck to the gas can on fire. I was standing a few feet from the gas can when it caught fire and exploded, sending a splash of flaming gas onto my sneaker. My sneaker- being rubber and fabric, caugght right away and the flame rose under my jean leg and proceded to burn about 4 inches up my leg above my ancle. 

Chase and his uncle were working on his truck and I did go outside to get some help learning my lines (in a play I had to drop out of because of the burn). I was out in the driveway, a large, empty space. I watched as Chase poured gas into the carborator of the truck. I turned away, and didnt see the collom of fire that came right out the top of the engine, and I didnt see the cup of gas in Chases had catch fire. What I did see was a look of pleasure on his face and my foot felt very warm. I looked down and I saw that my sneaker was on fire. I want to make sure you know he had the entire blacktop to throw the gas into, I was the only thing out there, but he threw it on me.
 
It took me a second to realise what was going on and when I did I freaked out. I began to run around as Earnest tried to pull my burning sneaker off my foot. By this time my skin had caught fire and I tried to stop drop and roll, but it didnt work becuase the gas and my skin we're feeding the fire too much.
The fire continued to burn my sneaker and up my jeans. Im still not sure why the jeans didnt catch fire, but the next flamable thing was my skin. The flames engulfed my ankle and I did exactly what I had always been taught. STOP DROP ROLL. On a side note, please please please teach your children this - it saved my life and it might save theirs. I dropped the the ground and began rolling around, trying in vain to put the fire out (it was somehow caught under my pants) and Chase and his uncle earnist just watched. I dont know how long it took to put out but it seemed like forever. Finally Earnest came over and helped me put it out. He was in shock, as much as I was and we finally got the fire out. I remember laying there, in more pain then you can imagine, sobbing loudly. I looked up to see Chase, the guy who had just burned me and he simply told me to be quiet as I was disturbing the neighbors. This was my boyfriend, who I had been with for a year, the man I loved. He told me to be quiet.

Chase and Earnest both burned their hands trying to put my leg out, and thankfuly they succeded. I was then driven to Earnest's house where his wife Laura was waiting for me. She is a nurse. I thought she was going to put something cool on it and I would be fine, but as soon as she saw it, she said we needed to go to the ER. So I was rushed to the ER, sobbing in pain the entire way.


Can I just say this is a lot harder to blog about then I thought it was going to be.... Im sitting here crying... I think Im going to take a little break and come back to this later...


I was in more pain then I have ever been in, and the smell. I dont ever recomend smelling your own flesh cooking, it is not pleasant. I was hurting so bad, but I quieted down. I wanted the pain to go away. Chase and Earnest helped me to my car and Chase drove me to Earnist's place. His wife Laura is a nurse and they figured she would be able to fix it. At this point I had not seen my ankle, but the pain was getting worse and worse. Chase told me he didnt want to take me to the hospital because they would probibly call the cops - I mean, wouldnt you? Well of course Laura said I had to go, it was a 3rd degree burn. I promised I would lie to the doctor and tell him the story I put on facebook. I lied to protect the man that hurt me, the one, who I believe, meant to hurt me.  



When I got there, they didnt even have me fill out a form, they rushed me into the hospital, took my vitals and put me in a hospital bed. I waited in that bed for a good 30 min in pain before a nurse came in and gave me some IB profin for the swelling and some very storng pain killers. Then the Dr came in, diagnosed it and left. I spent a grand total of 3 and a half hours in the ER, only being treated for maybe 30 min. The Kings Mountain Hospital is either under staffed or just far too slow.
I was really scared at the hospital. I was worried I would say the wrong thing or that the nurse or doctor would suspect something. I cried a lot. I remember they were going to give me a shot to stop the pain, but I have a horrible phobia of needles and I wouldn't let them, so they gave me horse pills for the pain. I begged Chase to call my parents and he said he would. He called his family (mom, dad and sis) and they came. I was very close to his family so it was nice to have them there. 

But when his mom came back to the room I was in, I could only have one visiter at a time, she noticed I had peed my pants. Remember - I had been set on fire and was scared out of my mind, this is not unusual the nurse told me. But when his mom saw, she laughed at me. I was 300 miles from home, in a hosital I didnt know, in a world of pain, with out my family, and she laughed at me. Later when I was alone in the room the nurse asked me who I wanted to come sit with me and I said Laura, because she had been so kind to me. 

Later that night, I had to apologize to Chase's mother because I hadn't asked her to sit back there with me. 

Chase did call my parents. He used my phone and called my dad's cell one time. Didnt leave a message. Sunday night is when my parents went to mass and dinner with my siblings, so they saw the missed call but didnt call back till much later. When they did call, I couldnt even tell them what happened bc I was too hopped up on pain killers. Chase told them something, but I dont rememeber what. 

Needless to say, when I was able to call and talk to them, they rushed up to school to be with me. 

So the end of the story is Im all right. Im in a lot of pain, but have plenty of pain pills. If you see me limping across campus, say hey. It will make my day

I just got back from the nurse, who has now put me on crutches, major bed rest and heavier pain pills- lucky me

I spent the next 4 months on crutches, and another 3 months using one crutch to simply walk. I'll tell more of the recovery story in another blog post. 

I do want to say I'm sorry, to my friends and my family, for lying. I should have been strong enough to tell the truth but I wasnt.