Well. This has been a very interesting, painful, tiring, and frustrating few days.
Started around 3pm on Tuesday. Some friends and I found a motor-scooter thing laying around in a dumpster at the apartments. We were bored, and decided it would be fun to get it running and ride it around the apartments and just be stupid with it(hell it didn't cost anything). After some tinkering around we got it started, but needed some gas. There aren't any gas stations close to our apartments, so we decided the easiest way would be to get it out of one of our cars. Being we all drive BMW's, and the e30 6-cyl is the easiest to get access to the fuel lines, we decided to get the gas out of my car. Easy, pull off the inlet fuel line for the fuel rail, turn the pump on and collect the fuel. Worked perfect. I've done it in the past before to test fuel systems and shit and never had any problems. Well, we go tear it up on the scooter and eventually run out of gas. Its about 6:30pm. We go back to my car to get some more fuel. Same procedure as we had done just a few hours before. Only this time...something goes wrong.
I have the line off, and the bottle in position. We go to run the fuel pump and BOOM. I see flame come out of the line/bottle and fuel goes everywhere. I am leaning over the engine, which means my head/arms get engulfed in the flame. I turn around immediately, trying to pat the fire from my face. I noticed my shirt was on fire, also, and wrestle to tear it off. I turn back around and see the whole front of my car in flames. 2 of my friends are putting the fire out on the car, and the other 2 are helping me/calling the police. There were at least a dozen people outside looking and just gazing at the whole affair. They seemed to be deaf when my friend asked for a fire extinguisher or any help. I sprinted back about 75 yrds to my apartment to splash cool water on my face. I looked in the mirror and saw the damage to my face. Skin peeling off my forehead and cheeks, my chin and ears were also burnt. My hair was singed and my arms were horrible. For what seemed like 15 minutes I stood in the bathroom trying to cool down my skin and help the pain. The paramedics came, and asked what hospital I wanted to go to. I knew the Paterson Hospital was close by, but knew it was probably the worst hospital ever. I told them "anywhere but Paterson". Next thing I know I am in the emergency room with just a few wet towels on my face, nothing on my arms. I had about 3 employees come to me and ask for all my information and such. They said it would be a while before a Dr. would see me.
After 3 hours. YES THREE HOURS of sitting in the ER, watching people stare me down and me asking them where the Dr. was, somebody finally came and asked me how I was. I told them "what does it look like" and she told me she was sorry, and that "there were sick people" to attend. She told me that I was lucky and that I was over reacting and I would be going home soon. What a load of shit that was....45 minutes later(for a total of 4 hours) a real Dr. came and was like "Holy shit, put this guy on oxygen and get an IV in him now!" so instantly I had 6 people running around me hooking me up to machines and one douchebag telling me "wow, that sucks! good thing theres plastic surgery to fix your face" I told him to STFU and he got all pissy. I told him again to go away or shut up and he shut up and gave me some morphine.
Another 2 hours later I got transferred to Saint Barnabas med center and went to the Burn Center. I arrived there around 2am and received excellent care. They put me on some awesome medication, and wrapped everything up(which should have been done at the first hospital when I arrived). I didn't get to go to sleep untill about 6:30 am on Wednesday.
8:30 wed. i was woken up and taken to a wash tank to get scrubbed down and have everything assessed. They said i had 2nd degree burns on 90% of my face and a majority of my arms had been burned. I spend the next 3 days in the step-down unit of the burn center wrapped up and healing.
My face has healed VERY well, and I will not need any skin grafts and will have minimal scarring besides my arms. Face skin heals very well i was told. Right now everything on my face is just peeling and is really itchy. Most of my face is bright pink and a lot of skin falling off. I need to get my hair cut to make it "uniform" at least. And my arms are still pretty messed up.
Flying back to Kansas tomorrow. And then back out to NJ to either continue in STEP or to pack up and move back. I'll possibly moving back out to Cali for finish STEP, but not sure yet.
Just thought I would share the experience. Make what you want with it.
Kyle
Edit: car is okay.
Clifnotes: Car caught on fire, My face and arms caught on fire. I go to Paterson hospital against my will and it sucks. Got transferred, I survived and got some neat drugs, and now I go home.
Started around 3pm on Tuesday. Some friends and I found a motor-scooter thing laying around in a dumpster at the apartments. We were bored, and decided it would be fun to get it running and ride it around the apartments and just be stupid with it(hell it didn't cost anything). After some tinkering around we got it started, but needed some gas. There aren't any gas stations close to our apartments, so we decided the easiest way would be to get it out of one of our cars. Being we all drive BMW's, and the e30 6-cyl is the easiest to get access to the fuel lines, we decided to get the gas out of my car. Easy, pull off the inlet fuel line for the fuel rail, turn the pump on and collect the fuel. Worked perfect. I've done it in the past before to test fuel systems and shit and never had any problems. Well, we go tear it up on the scooter and eventually run out of gas. Its about 6:30pm. We go back to my car to get some more fuel. Same procedure as we had done just a few hours before. Only this time...something goes wrong.
I have the line off, and the bottle in position. We go to run the fuel pump and BOOM. I see flame come out of the line/bottle and fuel goes everywhere. I am leaning over the engine, which means my head/arms get engulfed in the flame. I turn around immediately, trying to pat the fire from my face. I noticed my shirt was on fire, also, and wrestle to tear it off. I turn back around and see the whole front of my car in flames. 2 of my friends are putting the fire out on the car, and the other 2 are helping me/calling the police. There were at least a dozen people outside looking and just gazing at the whole affair. They seemed to be deaf when my friend asked for a fire extinguisher or any help. I sprinted back about 75 yrds to my apartment to splash cool water on my face. I looked in the mirror and saw the damage to my face. Skin peeling off my forehead and cheeks, my chin and ears were also burnt. My hair was singed and my arms were horrible. For what seemed like 15 minutes I stood in the bathroom trying to cool down my skin and help the pain. The paramedics came, and asked what hospital I wanted to go to. I knew the Paterson Hospital was close by, but knew it was probably the worst hospital ever. I told them "anywhere but Paterson". Next thing I know I am in the emergency room with just a few wet towels on my face, nothing on my arms. I had about 3 employees come to me and ask for all my information and such. They said it would be a while before a Dr. would see me.
After 3 hours. YES THREE HOURS of sitting in the ER, watching people stare me down and me asking them where the Dr. was, somebody finally came and asked me how I was. I told them "what does it look like" and she told me she was sorry, and that "there were sick people" to attend. She told me that I was lucky and that I was over reacting and I would be going home soon. What a load of shit that was....45 minutes later(for a total of 4 hours) a real Dr. came and was like "Holy shit, put this guy on oxygen and get an IV in him now!" so instantly I had 6 people running around me hooking me up to machines and one douchebag telling me "wow, that sucks! good thing theres plastic surgery to fix your face" I told him to STFU and he got all pissy. I told him again to go away or shut up and he shut up and gave me some morphine.
Another 2 hours later I got transferred to Saint Barnabas med center and went to the Burn Center. I arrived there around 2am and received excellent care. They put me on some awesome medication, and wrapped everything up(which should have been done at the first hospital when I arrived). I didn't get to go to sleep untill about 6:30 am on Wednesday.
8:30 wed. i was woken up and taken to a wash tank to get scrubbed down and have everything assessed. They said i had 2nd degree burns on 90% of my face and a majority of my arms had been burned. I spend the next 3 days in the step-down unit of the burn center wrapped up and healing.
My face has healed VERY well, and I will not need any skin grafts and will have minimal scarring besides my arms. Face skin heals very well i was told. Right now everything on my face is just peeling and is really itchy. Most of my face is bright pink and a lot of skin falling off. I need to get my hair cut to make it "uniform" at least. And my arms are still pretty messed up.
Flying back to Kansas tomorrow. And then back out to NJ to either continue in STEP or to pack up and move back. I'll possibly moving back out to Cali for finish STEP, but not sure yet.
Just thought I would share the experience. Make what you want with it.
Kyle
Edit: car is okay.
Clifnotes: Car caught on fire, My face and arms caught on fire. I go to Paterson hospital against my will and it sucks. Got transferred, I survived and got some neat drugs, and now I go home.
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