Worst burn I ever got was from my brother. Ma and Dad had taken Linda, Lori and Bev to their school conferences one evening and Ma told me to take a couple of Swanson pot pies out and Ron and I could have those for supper. The timer went off while I was in the bathroom so Ronnie decided he could take them out of the oven. He grabbed the potholders and just as I came around the corner of the kitchen he spun around with the cookie sheet holding the two pot pies. One slid into the other, flipping it off the cookie sheet and top side down onto my bare upper thigh. (I was wearing shorts, Bruce!!)
That bubbling hot pot pie ran slowly down my leg, burning all the way and burning everywhere it splattered. I remember screaming, Ronnie screaming, and incredible pain. I didn’t know what to do - I was only like 13 at the time, but for some reason my much younger brother said that we had to put butter on it. He grabbed the butter out of the fridge and tried to help me get the pie off....not easy to do in a moving target. I was hopping around that kitchen like I was possessed! Then he just took the butter off the dish and slapped it on the first place he could see bare skin. Oh, it felt so good in that spot. I thought it was the butter but I learned later that it was the coldness of the butter.
Then he ran across the street to my Uncle Orvis and they both came hightailing it over. By now the butter was making the burn feel worse, if that was possible. Uncle Orvis got things calmed down a bit, called an ambulance, and that was my first and only ride in one until my heart attack a couple of years ago. We couldn’t call Ma and Dad - no cells back then and we didn’t know the conference schedule so we weren’t sure which school they were even at. Orvis sent Ronnie over to stay with my aunt and went with me to the hospital, thank heavens! He left a quick scribbled note for my folks on the table. I was never so glad to see anyone in my life as I was to see them come rushing into the emergency room. I don’t remember a lot after that....just IVs in my arms and blessed drugs relieving that pain. About a week later I had my first skin graft.
I healed without too much scarring, but my brother was scarred for years. The guilt was a lot for a little boy to handle. He said once, when he was in his late teens, “ I can’t even imagine the pain of such burns. I was so afraid you were going to die and that would be such horrible way to die.” Sadly his own son, 8 year old Coty, died just an awful death in a house fire many years later.
Greeter
Friend
Spirit
