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.