Well, I guess I’ll start from my earliest memory……… I was four and I had lived in Covington at the time, we lived in a decent house not that bad comparing too the others. But you see when I was young I would play around with lighters, it had gotten so bad they started putting them in the mail box. But this night my dad brung one in to smoke a cigarette also my cousin Jeremiah came over to stay for the night. So in the middle of the night my parent were sleeping…… me, Jeremiah,and my sister were sitting on the couch watching TV, and I got up to go get some pop for the three of us. As I pulled the coke out and opened it, I seen a lighter on the table, and I went to pick it up.

I went back to the living room to show the others, they told me to put it back before I got into trouble, but I didn’t listen to them I walked half way to the kitchen into my aunt tiffanies room. As I walked in I seen some sort of folded up piece of paper, I lit it up and held it. As I watched in amazement my sister Chryslynn, and Jeremiah ran in telling me to put it out I didn’t, but I accidentally dropped it off on my aunt’s bed. Little did I know how flammable lint is, once they seen the flames they ran to my parent room to warn them. For I on the other hand only seen it as me getting in trouble, so I ran the opposite way to the living room.

I sat down on the couch and watched TV trying to pretend I didn’t do it. As for the rest of my family were outside, my mom thought I was with the other two. When she had seen I wasn’t there she ran to the side of the house with my dad. By now the smoke had set in and I was unable to breath whenever I tried it would burn my organs. And if you don’t know yet none of the fire got to me, in this house boxed in with fire the temperatures rise…… A LOT! So I was inside literally melting my skin started to just hang off my arms, the pain was excruciating all up until the pain was so great I couldn’t feel it any more. I was too young to know but by now the heat has gotten through my tissue and now has fried my nerves so I was completely numb. And my eyes started to slowly fade black, I thought this was it until I heard a loud crashing sound, I looked up and I seen my dad had broke the window and I saw my mom reach for my leg.

But when she grabbed it, it hurt and I mean I was screaming bloody murder because when she pulled on my leg all the skin just slipped off like some chicken or something like that. The pain was unbearable I have never experienced anything else like it, well she got me out but when she was carrying me to the ambulance I looked up at her and I said “mommy, I need a band aid” she looked down at me crying and she said “buddy you’re going to need more than a band aid “. The ride in the ambulance was a blur of yelling and water buckets to pour on me, the only thing I really remember from there is my mom.

When I was on the stretcher all black from the burns I didn’t know what to do, but then I look over to my right and I see my mom on the other stretcher. Turns out she was a little burned up from pulling me out. Well I can’t remember most of what happened until I was at the hospital, I remember them putting me in the surgery room and going to work they put the gas on me, but it took a minute for me to go out, and they didn’t have time to wait.

So they began trying to put my skin together making me new again and I sat and watched them do this for a couple of minutes, my skin being cut off into a bucket with scissors. They were still working on me a week later, they even called code blue on me at a time, because I completely stop breathing, and my heart rate was like 42 or something.

After saving my life they put me into gear, I had to wear a really tight clear mask, medicated gloves with raps, and there was hole in my neck so I could breath, and there was a trake there to help me breath. I was in that hospital for a little under a year, thanks to the doctors and nurses at shriners, I made it. I’ve was pretty beaten up, but I’m one of the very lucky people who gets to live and I’m going to make sure to make the best of it.