Jesse Dill

An Empowering Mindset for Total Recovery

On the August long weekend in 2007, I travelled from the Sunshine Coast to Victoria to join friends for a soccer tournament. After long days on the field we shared meals and spent the nights catching up.

In the early morning of my last night in town, I woke up to a pitch-black room full of smoke. I felt eerily calm as I moved in the direction of the window. Aaron and Michal, who had escaped from downstairs, were yelling from below for me to jump. I attempted to break the window with my elbow but it didn’t break; that is where my memory cuts out. But the window did break and I did jump. Aaron and Michal locked their arms together and broke my 15-foot belly flop.

The first responder was a police officer who helped drag me away from the fire. My next memory is looking back and seeing the blaze totally engulf the house, then looking up at the paramedics in the ambulance. My body was black, and the paramedics poured ice water everywhere. I became intensely cold and begged for drugs. They administered morphine, and I passed out.

I woke up 11 days later in the Royal Jubilee ICU, still on a ventilator, only remembering wild and crazy morphine dreams. I had sustained second and third degree burns to over 34% of my body, and was severely burned on my arms and back, likely from the draft created when the window broke. While still in a drug-induced state, less than a week after the fire, I was taken to surgery where two plastic surgeons each took an arm and applied skin grafts using donor skin from my legs.

After becoming conscious, I learned that the house fire was caused by charcoal from a hookah that was used earlier in the night to smoke flavoured tobacco. It is believed that the hookah was knocked over while two of the five survivors were sleeping on the nearby couches. The charcoal smouldered in one of the couches for up to an hour and a half before bursting into flames, producing an extremely hot and fast spreading blaze. I also found out that two other friends, Joe and Gavin, also managed to escape.

I was then told with great sadness of the tragedy of the fire - two friends did not survive. Brenna Innes and Chelsea Robinson, who hung out with the soccer team all weekend and returned to the house that night, died of smoke inhalation while trying to escape. Brenna was so uplifting; she had this special talent in making her friends feel loved. She was a top athlete and, with humility, one of the strongest science and math students at the University of Victoria. Chelsea grew up on the Sunshine Coast, where the dance studio is now named in her honour. She was a proud aunt, she shared a special love with her boyfriend, she helped others by volunteering at a soup kitchen, and she was a committed student at the University of Victoria, with the goal of becoming a teacher.

It was difficult to grieve and recover from my injuries at the same time. This is where the people close to me put me on their shoulders and made all the difference. My parents and two brothers dropped everything to be by my side. My mom was the quarterback for everything, and my dad was my motivator. Tony led my fantasy baseball team to a cash prize while Eli wrote a verse in a song on his album dedicated to me. When I moved to the Burn Unit, I had a steady stream of friends passing through, writing and phoning. My girlfriend at the time, with whom I remain close, practically lived at the hospital; she is now a nurse on the Burn Unit floor. The nurses (I had a crush on all of them) often commented on the quality of my friends and noticed that my vitals would improve when I had visitors.

When I was released after five weeks in hospital, the Victoria Firefighters Burn Fund put my family up in the Burn House while I had outpatient care, and they covered the costs of my pressure garments, moisturizer, and the formula that fed me through a temporary G-tube. I continue to go to counselling and talk about the experience with anyone who wants to listen. I rely a lot on the survivors of the fire for support, questions and advice. With my introduction to the Future is Mine Adult Burn Community and all of its resources, I’m certain I can keep a positive and empowering mindset as I strive towards total recovery.

By: Jesse Dill

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