Why my children will never be allowed to use sparklers

Our freshman year of college, my family and a bunch of our friends went to my aunt and uncle’s lake house for the Fourth of July. We had so much fun wake boarding, tubing, playing games and eating. We had purchased skads of fireworks.

That night, David and one of his friends, who we’ll call Mr. R, went outside to get the fireworks going. I remember coming out of the bathroom, and my friend, we’ll call her Ms. M, blocked me. “David’s burned his hand. It’s pretty bad,” she said. My father is a paramedic, and he had David at the kitchen sink, running cool water over his hand. He then wrapped wet paper towels around David’s hand and put a plastic Ziploc bag over his hand to keep the air from hitting the flesh.

Turns out the guys had the bright idea to take all 32 of the sparklers and light them all at once. They exploded. In David’s hand. It’s quite literally a miracle that Mr. R’s face didn’t get burned, too.

My father then handed me his truck keys and said, “He needs to go to the hospital.”

“Uh, you’re going to have to drive, Daddy!” I said.

There was no way I was going to be able to take care of David and find a hospital in the middle of Gun Barrel City (Yes, that was the name of the nearest town.). So Daddy, Mr. R, Ms. M, David and I got in the truck and found a hospital.

While we were driving to the hospital David was in a lot of pain. I was trying to distract him and I spotted a Sonic. I had no idea that there was a Sonic in Gun Barrel City. “Look, David! There’s a Sonic! We could get drinks there!” I said.

I think that was when he first started to think evil thoughts towards me.

We got to the hospital which was not busy. I checked David in and we filled out paperwork while my father called David’s father. David’s parents live here in Dallas, but that weekend they were each in separate states visiting their families. We really didn’t know how bad his hand was. I was just thankful my father was there to call them instead of me.

While we were waiting to be seen, I told David that if they wouldn’t let me go back with him since I was just his girlfriend that I’d tell them I was his common law. He then told me he didn’t know how he would ever be able to provide for me. How could he be a successful computer programmer with his right hand melted? Men are so different than women. The last thing I was worried about was David’s career or money.

We waited for an hour. Okay, it was ten minutes, but it felt like an hour. The doctor looked at David and said, “Can you move your fingers?”

“I don’t want to,” David told him.

“You have to move your fingers or you’ll be sent to Parkland. I can’t treat you if you can’t move your fingers.”

David didn’t scream or yell. It was more light a grunt yell. Like when guys in movies are lifting a car off of someone to save their life. He moved his fingers.

The doctor said that although the skin was falling off, he hadn’t damaged his muscles. They got him started on morphine as soon as he moved his fingers. They poured sodium chloride on his hands. Sodium chloride is very cool and soothing. It’s the same fluid our bodies produce to protect us from wounds like the fluid in a blister.

The morphine was in an IV. It started really fast, and then went to a slow drip. It was now probably eleven o’clock at night. We were in shorts. I was in a sleeveless shirt. Hospitals are considerably cooler than the outside temperature on the Fourth of July. We were both getting cold, and David was shivering. He asked me to go get him a blanket.

“Okay, just a minute. I can hear the nurse talking to the patients in the next room. She’ll be back in just a minute to check on you,” I replied. Well, a few minutes later, David asked again, only this time  he was cussing at me. I might possibly have laughed at him because I knew he was so out of it. I went to the nurse’s station and they gave me two blankets and two glasses of water. The hospital in Gun Barrel City really is a wonderful facility.

And the slow drip continued. David slept. I know because he was snoring. I was a little too keyed up to sleep. Eventually David said he had to go to the bathroom.

“Tell the nurse I can go by myself. She just needs to wheel the IV into the restroom. And I want more of the sodium chloride. The chemical composition is Na…Cl…or…is it Na2…Cl2?”

I found the nurse explained that David had to go to the bathroom, but I didn’t think he could walk a straight line. She grabbed a jug and said there was no way he was leaving that room.

“You have to stay in this room. We’ll both leave and give you privacy, but you have to stay here!” the nurse told David.

“I can go to the bathroom. I’m…fine. Do you have more of that sodium chloride? NA…CL?” David said.

“I’ll bring you some.” the nurse said as she handed him the jug. She turned to walk out of the room. I got up and followed her.

“You can help him with his pants,” she said as she shut the door in my face.

“What!? No! You’re the nurse! That’s your job!” I tried to say.

But it was too late. She was gone. So much for being his common law wife!

I helped David with his pants and left the room. When he finished I came back in and tried to zip his pants back up. They wouldn’t budge.

“I don’t understand why you can’t just zip them up!” David said.

“I’m sorry! I’m trying!” I cried.

David laid back down on the bed and I was able to zip them up.

And the slow drip continued. The nurse came in with the sodium chloride. And the slow drip continued.

Finally the doctor and the nurse came in. I’d heard horror stories about burn patients’ skin being scrubbed. Praise the Lord, all they did was put Silvadene on his burns and bandage him. They gave him Silvadene and pain killers to take home and told him to see his regular doctor as soon as possible.

I was so tired. And David was so out of it. We made it back to the lake house. We hadn’t planned on spending the night. We didn’t have toothbrushes or pajamas or anything. My parents left in their car that night. Mr. R, Ms. M David and I crashed at the lake house with my aunt and uncle.

David slept on a day bed in the dining room. I was on the trundle beside him, but I wasn’t doing much sleeping. I had to give him his meds every four hours. That, and Mr. R, who happened to be sleeping in the loft upstairs, was snoring so loud, I thought it was my uncle in the room next to me.

I went upstairs and tried to roll Mr. R on his side. Now, let me tell you, I could pick David up on my back when we were that age. And Mr. R was considerably smaller. I could not roll that man over for anything. After trying several different ways to roll him over, I went and got pillows from the couch downstairs and wedged them under his right side. It helped, but it didn’t stop the snoring completely. It was a rough night for me.

The next morning, I was so exhausted. David was not in a particularly cooperative mood. He didn’t want to try to feed himself with his left hand, so Ms. M and I cut up his food and fed it to him. And he complained because the cinnamon roll had nuts.

Mr. R drove the car home because I didn’t feel safe behind the wheel. When my cell phone finally got reception, David had me call his supervisor and let them know he wouldn’t be in that day.

And I had messages from David’s sister. She didn’t know how bad David was. I think she thought it was the worst. I called her back and let her know that the doctor said that David hadn’t damaged the muscles or nerves. I also told her that I’d helped David with his pants when he had to go to the bathroom, and we hadn’t showered, and I wasn’t helping him with that!

I was so happy to see David’s sisters that day. They took care of everything. David was coherent enough to bathe himself. His sister just covered his hand with a plastic bag. She even changed the bandages and put the Silvadene on him. David’s parents came home and took him to their doctor, who had to cut off pieces of skin several times.

David drove a stick shift at the time, and since it was his right hand burned, his dear sister was nice enough to go to the jeweler when they called and said the engagement ring David had ordered was ready. Thanks, sis!

Today, you cannot see a scar on David’s hand. It was very sensitive to sunlight for about a year, but now it is perfectly fine. And yeah, he’s a great computer programmer!

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