I'm A Burn Survivor
By Timothy Grainger McDonald

One day after school when I was five years old, my sister was sick and mum was singing to her to try and get her to sleep, well I was bored and found a box of matches, I hid in the laundry and started to light some of the matches, they wouldn't light so I kept trying. Finally one lit but it broke in half and it landed on the plastic logo on my  sweatshirt. I got a big fright and started to run to my mum. Mum came running down to see what all the noise was and found me on fire. She put out the flames with her bare hands and put me into the bath with cold water running over me. She told me to stay there while she went and got the phone to ring 111.

I remember the skin on my chest was just peeling off like long strips of slime. Mum came with me in the Ambulance to the hospital, we saw the doctor on duty and he  told us that things are going to be okay. It was only superficial burns. I stayed in hospital in my hometown for 5 days, I wouldn't eat or drink, I don't really remember much of my stay there. On the 5th day the doctor told my mum that I would have to get a second opinion at the burn unit in Waikato.

When we got to Waikato hospital I was seen by a Plastic Surgeon. He told us that I had full thickness burns to my neck and chest and they would have to do skin grafts. They pumped me full of drugs. I couldn't walk as they had taken all the skin off my right thigh that is now called my donor. It hurt so much. The nurses got me out of bed and made me walk a little, that was painful. It was hard too, like learning to walk all over again. When it was shower time I would scream the hospital down. The pain was unbearable. I was like this for about two weeks. Things got better for me on the third week. And I was able to go home. About a week after I got home I got an infection in my new skin and had to go back into Waikato Hospital. Another operation, more pain and more recovery time. Two more weeks in hospital and I was on the mend. The third week I came home. I had to be fitted for a pressure garment. I hated it. It hurt to put it on and it hurt to take it off. The only time it came off was to have a shower. It was so hot to wear, as it was the middle of summer. They made me wear a headpiece and a neck brace. I felt like a freak. People would stare at me and would say mean things. After 18 months I didn't have to wear the pressure garments any more. It did the job. My skin is flat and smooth on my neck and chest. I have had two more operations called zed plastering since my accident to my neck. They cut zeds around my neck as I grow. I had to go and have an operation on my neck last Christmas. They cut a piece of skin out of my groin about 1/2 cm thick and about 21 cm long and put it in my neck. I will need a lot more of these operations as I grow. My scars are from just under my chin, down the front of my neck and around my entire chest.

After my accident my family got involved with the Waikato Burn Support Group and found them to be a great help. I got to see that there are people out there burnt like me. I wasn't the only one. I live a normal life. I just hope that someone out there learns from my lesson. I am reminded everyday of what I did, and I am scared for life, on the inside as well as the outside. But I am a survivor. I am proud to be me.

Tim
Aged 13 years

Note: You can see and read more about Timothy at our Keeping Safe Careful and Cool book launch site as he was the featured burn survivor at this event: Keeping Safe book launch