On February 23, almost a month ago, Jack had a scary brush with fire. No not a brush fire. A close call, a scary moment, a fire ball in his face, to be more accurate. I had picked Walker and Jack up early from school because they both didn't have a sixth period that day. The three of us came home, Jack went out to tinker around in the garage. He sits at this work area and works out his boredom. Well, as you can see from the picture below, there was an empty 5 gallon gas tank right by his feet that day. I had taken Dillon gas the week before when his car had run out on the road, and had left the gas can there. It was missing the cap so I had put a plastic bag with a rubber band around it to seal the opening. There was no gas left in it, or so I thought, and Jack had removed the bag a day or two before to check for gas to put in something or other, and he had left the bag off. On that fateful Thursday, he sat down in the chair, was daydreaming, picked up a lighter to flick it in all of his boredom, and because the tank was directly below him, we've deduced that there were fumes in the air that ignited with the lighter. He swears up and down that he didn't go, "hmm, gas + lighter, let's see what happens?" and I believe him. All he remembers is flicking the lighter and feeling his face on fire and feeling his hair burn. Walker and I heard this loud yell and Jack ran in the house yelling that he was on fire and patting his burnt hair. I immediately put his head under the sink and ran cold water on his head and pulled out clumps of burnt hair. It smelled seriously bad. His face looked ok so I sent him to take a shower to get the black out of his hair and see what was left. At that point, I thought he had only lost hair. I went to check on him in the shower and when he poked his face out, he said it was starting to hurt really bad, his eyes were super red and his skin was turning very red. At that point, I knew we needed to go to the ER. I made a bag of ice to put on his face and we quickly left for the San Clemente Emergency Room. As we were driving there and I could tell the pain was worsening, I started to get worried that is was worse than I originally thought. His eyebrows and eyelashes were gone and his skin was getting pretty red. When we got to the ER, they got us in pretty quickly, and were most concerned whether he had inhaled any of the fire. They were pretty sure that his burns were 1st degree, like a bad sunburn, so that was reassuring, but they had to keep him there for observation because if he had inhaled any of the fire or gas fumes, his airway could be damaged and his breathing could become affected. Jack was in a lot of pain so they gave his some good pain killers and eventually wrapped his face in a saline soaked gauze mummy wrap. They decided he needed to go to the burn unit in Santa Ana, via ambulance, to which I refused the ambulance part, signed paperwork and took him there myself. By the time we got to the burn unit, with Jack all mummified, it was 5 hours after the accident happened. When they checked him out at the burn unit, they took off his bandages and he looked SO much better. Saline solution must be the cure for 1st degree burns. He felt 100 times better after the mummy wrap came off. They said he was a lucky boy and sent us on our way. It was a scary day, but ended with complete relief that all he had lost were his eyebrows, eyelashes and quite a bit of hair off his head. He cute face was going to be fine and we are pretty sure he won't be a future pyromanic.
Jack's pretty face BEFORE (notice the bushy eyebrows)
the scene of the crime
bye-bye hair and eyebrows!
poor guy
mummified
after we left the burn center, looking MUCH better
two days later
