March 1982

First Contact with SCFPD

Kevin's Page | Memories
 
I believe that Kevin got the idea of being a fireman from this experience.

One afternoon Kevin decided to make some doughnuts after school.  He had recently learned the trick from one of his friends.  He started to heat the oil – since it took some time to get hot enough to fry the doughnuts, he decided to take the opportunity to go to the bathroom.  When he returned to the kitchen he found that the hot oil had splattered and ignited.  The cupboards above the stove, the wall and the ceiling were ablaze.  His first thought was to move the flaming oil pan to the sink.  In the process of moving the pan, the hot oil splashed all over his right hand and arm burning him horribly.  In his excitement, he didn’t notice.  He ran out to the front yard, brought in the garden hose, and proceeded to put out the fire – even crawling up into the attic to verify the fire hadn’t spread to there.

When he was sure the house wasn’t going to burn down, he phoned me at the office and told me about the fire.  I told him to call the fire department and I hurried home.

When I arrived, several of the firemen had finished verifying the fire was out and one of them was looking at Kevin’s arm.  He advised me to rush him to the hospital since his arm was seriously burned.  The firemen were impressed with the way Kevin handled the situation and Kevin was in turn impressed with the fireman.

The burn turned out to be very serious.  The arm got infected and had to be debride, all the dead and infected material surgically removed.  Kevin was very brave during this process.  It was very painful and he passed out a couple of times – but he never complained.  He was put in isolation for two weeks to insure that no more skin tissue would be lost.  The doctor said if any more tissue was lost, skin grafts would be necessary.  They weren’t sure he would ever regain full use of his hand.

Kevin endured countless hours of extremely painful therapy and eventually did regain full use of his hand.  The courage he showed during his recovery was inspiring – he never complained, he just worked. 
 

Kevin's Page | Memories