Over the past few months I have drafted a couple of attempts to describe our family's experience of our daughter having been burned and its aftermath, but the trauma was still too fresh to share in a public forum.
But since we are a few days away from it being six months since the accident happened, I will give some brief notes and impressions.
First - DO NOT EVER pour any flammable substance onto a fire, no matter how dead the fire may look. A five litre container of paraffin and a very small almost dead fire in a small fireplace in a civilised lounge on a Sunday afternoon in the middle of town where a bunch of highly educated people have gathered is no guarantee that the laws of physics and chemistry will be suspended. (The person who attempted this feat was not Amy by the way and the house was not ours). Five litres of fuel that catches alight is essentially a fire bomb.
Second - No one can move as fast as a parent does on hearing their child scream, no matter what the age of that child. Without even knowing what had happened, Guy and I catapulted from the dining room. Another guest said later that she had never before seen anybody move so fast.
Third - terror and disbelief don't help. When I saw my daughter run past me with her legs on fire and then go up in flames and fall to the ground in the passage way so that all I saw were the flames and I heard her scream that the fire wasn't going out - and I thought with terror and horrified disbelief that on a sociable Sunday afternoon lunch date I could be watching my daughter die in front of my eyes, all I could do was scream as well. I do realise that it was actually only for three seconds at most and that Guy was closer to her than I was - but when someone is burning screaming is a luxury that cannot be afforded.
Fourth - Guy was the unmistakeable hero here and saved our daughter twice that day. With absolutely single-minded focus he flung himself onto her to smother the flames. He saved her actual life and by stopping the flames going higher he saved how she would live her life. His shouting instructions all the while also galvanised everyone. Amy's boyfriend put out the flames on her hand and I ran to collect cushions to smother the flames that were still whooshing around her legs.
Fifth - Clothes are important! Guy was wearing a wool coat and jeans or else he would have gone up in flames too. Amy was wearing a close-knit cotton jersey under her synthetic jacket - which is what went up as I saw her fall. The jersey saved most of her body from being burned. Incidentally, Amy had actually dropped because she remembered to "stop, drop and roll" (which did not put the flames out but it did slow them from travelling vertically up her body).
Sixth - Have plenty of people to hand. The lounge was also on fire of course and the house an old Victorian one - so a bunch of guests were available to contain and douse that fire.
Seventh - Time! In a fire you don't have much of it at all. We estimate that Amy was on fire for all of ten seconds and that alone gave her 15% body area mixed depth burns, needing five skin grafts. Amy thought it was thirty seconds and the surgeon said that thirty seconds would have been fatal.
Eighth - Water! You need as much of it as you can get. As soon as the flames were out, Amy was carried to the shower and kept there until a bath of water was run and then kept there for half an hour to remove some of the heat before Guy would allow the ambulance to arrive. The plastic surgeon said that this was the biggest single factor in altering her medical outcome. The long immersion also resulted in Amy's burnt clothing coming away easily from her body instead of sticking to it.
Ninth - Position position! Our friends' house was less than two minutes away from a hospital.
Tenth - Medical Skill! The plastic surgeon on call that night who became Amy's attending surgeon is one of the most meticulous and forward-thinking plastic surgeons in Cape Town. (We later discovered that he attended the same school in Welkom as Guy!)
Tenth - Medical aid! Never under-estimate the importance of having this. One month in hospital and nine theatre visits comes to over R350 000 (for non-South Africans, look up the current exchange rate).
That's enough for this post. I'll continue in the next.
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