Burn
You may be wondering why this page is called “The Burn Pages”. I have called it that because these pages cover my story as a burn survivor. I’ll also be posting some links and other things concerning burns and burn survivors.My Journey - The AccidentThis is the beginning of my journey as a burn survivor. I am recording this for a number of reasons of which the greatest is probably for my own benefit as I work through the process of dealing with what happened both physically and emotionally.From April 17th through the 22nd we were having a ministry team in our church called Go Ministries. This is a ministry which is based out of our former church, Living Word Christian Center, in Mpls. Our son Trent was an intern last year with the road team of Go Ministries and we had them in last year for a wonderful time of ministry in our church. Their road team consists of about 20 people and includes an awesome band and drama ministry. They arrived Tuesday and that evening we had a wedding shower for my son Trent and his fiancee Jessica who is the drama director for Go. On Wednesday we had scheduled them to do the service at Faith Builders Church in Rogers, AR. We cancelled our Wed. service so our church could support the meetings in Rogers. The ministry was awesome. On Thu. the entire team went canoing on the Mulberry River and came back that night tired and sunburned.On Friday the team arrived at about noon for lunch and then setup. They travel with a full sound/light/video system that has to be directly wired into an electrical panel. As the team was setting up and we were waiting for the electrician to hook up the system the tour director, Adam Philippi, wanted to take a look at the electric panels to see if anything was needed for the hookup. We went to the back room just off the stage and Adam took the covers off both panels. We stood there for a few moments discussing whether any breakers, etc. would need to be bought. Adam was facing the panel and I was standing next to him and had just begun to turn when there was an explosion. When I opened my eyes I saw Adam on fire. I almost seemed as though things were happening in slow motion. It looked like special effects from a movie where they douse someone wearing a special suit with gas or something and light them on fire.When I saw Adam on fire I immediately began to try and put him out by slapping at the flames with my hand. As I was doing this I saw flames out of the corner of my left eye and realized I was on fire myself. I fell to the ground and began to roll and pull off what was left of my t-shirt. As I was doing this my daughter Evan who had seen what she described as a sparkling ball of flame come about six feet out the door ran in, grabbed Adam and threw him on the ground and extinguished the flames. I crawled out on the platform, laid on my stomach, and began to yell “Call 911, call 911″. Evan brought Adam out and sat him in a chair in the sanctuary.Of course during this time everyone was praying. I called Susan over and said “We are not going to cancel these meetings, We are going to have these meetings”. There was no way I was going to let the devil win in this situation. After what seemed like an hour but in reality was only a few minutes the ambulances arrived. They tried to get an IV in my hand but couldn’t find a good vein. We were loaded up in separate ambulances and taken to Summit Medical Center in Van Buren. In the emergency room Adam and I were separated by a curtain and until they put a breathing tube in him we talked quite a bit. The thing that sticks in my mind about our conversation was when Adam said, “Well Pastor Kevin, I guess this binds us together forever”. I told him I thought he was probably right. At the hospital they were able to get the IV in and get some morphine into me. This helped with the pain. Susan came in for a little bit. There was some discussion about where we would go next. First we thought we would go to the burn center at Childrens Hospital in Little Rock. They were full so they decided to send us to the burn center at Hillcrest in Tulsa.I don’t remember alot about the helicopter ride, I think the morphine was really taking effect by then. When we arrived in Tulsa we were taken to the Burn Center ICU. After we were examined it was determined that I had burns on approx. 20% of my body. I had 2nd and 3rd degree burns on my right forearm and hand, my right shoulder and my upper back, the back of my neck and head, the right side of my neck, my right ear, and the right side of my face. Adam had burns on approx. 25% of his body. He had 2nd and 3rd degree burns on his hands and arms, upper chest, neck, and face. I was moved into a regular room in the burn unit that night while Adam stayed in ICU.I guess this concludes the accident part of this journal. The next part of the journal will cover the first few days in the hospital.My Journey - Hillcrest Medical CenterWell, after waking up on Saturday morning I was brought a delicious hospital meal. At this point eating was the last thing on my mind. I ate a few bites of a mandarin orange fruit cup(which I promptly lost a little later). One of the things I remember from this time is still having the smell of burned flesh in my nose. It’s an odor I definitely will never forget. A nurse came in and said, “It’s time to go back for your bath”. Great! I get to clean up. Next thing I know I’m getting some Morphine in my IV line. Hmmmm, must be some kinda bath I’m going to get. They took 
me back to the bath area, handed me some soap, sponges, and a wash cloth and I started scrubbing. I also had to shave when I was back there which was a real treat since my face looked like this. Kinda rough shaving on that nasty looking face. Actually, Susan said my hair looked like Dennis Rodman, it was all yellow from the fire. I think this picture was taken on either Sunday afternoon or Monday. It’s from Susan’s cell phone so it isn’t the best quality. Here is a picture of me sitting up in bed. You can see how swollen I was. The goofy smile is because I probably just had a fresh sh
ot of Morphine. Okay, back to the bath time story. After I finished cleaning myself up and shaving one of the nurses took over and started scrubbing. Now I realized why they gave me Morphine before bathtime. This was without a doubt the most painful part of being burned. I lost my mandarin oranges that first morning. The nurses called it debreding the wound. I have another name for it that I won’t repeat. Actually, the worst part of the first days in the hospital was not having Susan there with me. When the accident happened the first thing I told her, after saying “Call 911″, was not to cancel the meetings with Go Ministries. I knew it was the right thing to do. There was no way I was going to let the devil win, we were going to have those meetings. Those first few days were lonely. I was sure glad to see her that Sunday afternoon. I was scheduled for surgery on Monday. There isn’t much else to say about those first days other than that the staff in the Burn unit at Hillcrest was incredible.My Journey - Hillcrest Medical Center Part 2Late on the night of Monday, April 23rd I was taken in for skin graft surgery. Since the skin is the largest organ of the body, skin graft surgery is considered an organ transplant. Using a tool that could be described as kind of like a cheese slicer, strips of skin were taken off my lower back and the back of my right thigh. The thigh skin was placed on my right forearm and hand and the lower back skin was placed on my upper back. Before it is attached they run it through a machine that perforates it so it can be stretched to cover a larger area. The skin is attached using glue and stainless steel staples. The nurses said Dr. Giddens loves to use staples. I found that out when later in the week when my staples were removed - over 300 of them. The doctor said when skin is grafted it is like planting seeds, when you plant seeds some take, and some don’t. Usually they know within a few days how much of the grafting will take. Praise God - 100% of my grafts took. The reason they took is what I want to share with you next.Before I share the testimony let me give you a little background. From the time I came into the hospital I was taking very little as far as pain medication. The nurses came to Susan and told them I needed to quit trying to be a tough guy and take stuff for pain. Susan told them (and I wholeheartedly agreed) that I am a wimp and if I was in pain I would take something. I am telling you this so you will realize that what I experienced on Tuesday night following my surgery was not some drug induced hallucination or something like that. Anyway, I had fallen asleep on Tuesday night after Susan left. Typically I would wake up at night at times, lay there for a bit, pray a little, and then go back to sleep. I woke up sometime in the night and could hear a lot of people talking and I could feel what felt like hands working in the areas where I had been burned. These areas had been bandaged fairly tightly. The main voice I heard seemed to be directing other people. He would say “I’ll take care of this area”, “You handle that”,”Go over there and take care of that”, etc. Normally, if I heard a bunch of voices in my room and felt hands touching me I wouldn’t just lay there, but I had and incredible feeling of peace. When I woke up the next morning, the bandages on my arm, hand, and back were very loose. From that moment on the healing of my burns rapidly increased! It’s Hebrews 1:14. God is real, His Word is true!