Sarah has bravely shared a very personal story with us to help highlight the importance of fire safety around the home in winter. Thanks Sarah for your amazing contribution!
Tell us a bit about yourself
I am a 34 year old Mum of two. I’m an educated woman, in the process of completing my second degree. I currently work with special needs kids in high school. I am fit and healthy, I enjoy yoga, netball and occasionally go to the gym. I’m a social person who is outgoing and places a high value on friends and family.
Tell us a bit about your accident
My accident took place at a private residence, a friends house in Sorrento. It was a party, celebrating a friends birthday in late September. The weather was cool so the fire pit outside was lit, it was a great environment to hang around with friends, enjoying a drink and a social atmosphere. I was unwell at the time – and run down. I drank too much alcohol, whilst also taking strong antibiotics for a chest and sinus infection. At one stage of the evening I decided to go outside for some air, the fire pit was still lit, but there was no one else around. In my intoxicated state I thought that there was a bench seat around the fire pit – a warm place to sit. However, it was infact an iron frame that the fire pit was mounted on. I sat on it, effectively branding myself on this iron frame that had been heated by the fire for many hours. I tried to stand up, using my hands to push me up and slipped backward further into the fire. I don’t remember much else, only that I was certain that I was going to die there, all I could think of was my children. I somehow managed to get myself up and, so I’m told, approached another woman at the party (who I didn’t know) she got the attention of my friend whose party it was and they applied first aid. I later discovered there was uncertainty in how they were going to treat me, one person thought they needed to wrap the burns in cling wrap, another that they should put ice on it. One of the guys at the party knew that I needed to be put under running water and this is what they did. I was taken into the shower and kept there under cold running water until the ambulance came.
Can you tell us about the emergency response that took place around the time of your incident?
I don’t remember any of it, though the ambulance was called, and I believe it was only then that the others realised the extent of my injuries, that it was my legs and buttocks that had been most severely burnt. The ambulance took me as a priority one to Fiona Stanley Hospital where I was looked after by the most incredible team of doctors, nurses, physio’s, occupational therapists and more. I remained in hospital for a total of about a month, with much more care being required in the months and years to come.
How has it affected your life?
It’s hard to say really. I do believe that things such as this happen for a reason, that it has taught me to be a better person, to live my life and love my loves more fully than I have before, to appreciate everything I have rather than focus on the things I do not.
Though it’s been hard, of course it’s been hard. My kids still ask me if the scars are ever going to go away, am I ever going to look normal again. My son over the last year has been angry that I was burnt – that it (even if just on some occasions) stopped me from being able to do the things with him that I would have been able to do previously. The trauma of such an incident effects more people and in more ways than you can ever imagine possible. My family lived through this trauma and we survived, but the scars run deeper than the eye can see and even effect the children in ways that I will never fully know or understand. I think that’s the hardest part.
Do you have any advice for others about the important of fire safety?
I’ve never really been an overly cautious person, even with the kids we would let them jump in the pool at an early age, ‘sink or swim’ type theory. Of course we were watching them, but we’d encourage them to push their own limits and learn by themselves what those limitations were and we were like this with most things in life.
But now – fire is different. The treatment of burns in the most excruciating process you can imagine. As an adult you can rationalize it, you can understand that the nurses who scrub the wounds in the shower every day are doing it to look after you, to prevent infection and promote healing. Thinking of a child in that situation makes me feel sick to my stomach. Inflicting that torture (for really that is what it feels like) onto a child is just something that I couldn’t begin to imagine. While I still want my children to know their own limitations, safety around fire is something that can’t be taken lightly in my eyes. It’s so easy for, in the blink of an eye, a child to get too close to a flame, to fall over near a fire place, to rest their hand on a hot plate or something similar. It’s just not something that kids (or anyone) can fathom until it has happened to them.
Any final words?
While I was in the hospital one of the surgeons had mentioned that they were working towards making it mandatory for fire pits to have a fence around them – much like a pool must have a fence around it. It’s become the ‘in thing’ to have a fire pit in the home but there are no restrictions when it comes to safety of these things. Knowing how easily this happened to me, and how easily it could happen to anyone else, especially a child, I can only hope that such restrictions will be put in place.
From the team at ALCAN, thank you for reading this article and stay safe.
