It happened August 23, 1992. A Sunday. It was the day before my oldest daughter's 11th birthday and we had just finished having an early family get together for the occasion.

We lived in the Jack Fork Mountains in a trailer house that was connected to a pond for it's source of water. There was no filter system, so we didn't drink or cook with this water, but we did use it to bathe in. During the summer, dirt from the pond clogged the cold water lines to the trailer.

We would let the hot water run until it cooled down enough to bathe in. It had been suggested that we could use the pressure from a propane system to blow out these lines but I resisted that idea. I was afraid. When school started I knew we would have to do something so the kids could bathe and be clean. Letting the water cool down would take too long, so I agreed to go ahead with the propane idea.

My husband at the time was running the valve on the propane tank outside, and I was holding the hose to the water spiggot in the kitchen sink. The propane would shoot into the lines till you turned it off and then the dirt would spew back out. Made a heck of a mess. The hose didn't fit the spiggot good, and a lot of propane leaked into the kitchen. I was standing looking out the window where I could see my 3 kids washing our truck, when I remembered that we had forgot to turn out the pilot lights on the propane cookstove. The second I thought of it, I turned to run.

I had made about a 1/4 of the turn when the propane ignited. I heard a big boom and was thrown to the floor on my hands and knees. I instinctivly shut my eyes and rolled into a ball. I could hear something burning, and trailers being what they are, thought the house was burning down around me. I was screaming, but not from pain. I can't describe the fear, but it was fear that caused me to scream.

I heard my husband saying, "Baby...Baby?" I didn't open my eyes until he had picked me up and set me onto my feet. He patted around my waist because my shirt was still on fire. I could see that it was my kitchen curtains, and the back of a vinly chair that was on fire. I looked down at my arms and could see the skin hanging in ribbons like bracelets. I said "Oh my God. I've been burned." My husband grabbed me up and took me to the truck.

My oldest girl Stephanie had heard the scream and had started running down our dirt road driveway to get help from my in-laws. The other two kids, Kayla & Jimmy, climbed into the back of the truck. Stephanie was about 1/2 way down the road when we picked her up, and I remember looking at her and wondering where her shirt was. She told me later that she heard the blast, felt heat on her back, and thought she was on fire so she pulled it off.

We lived way out in the Jack Fork Mountains (beyond the boonies), and it took anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour just to reach pavement. Even then you had a ways to drive before reaching a town.

After dropping the kids off at my mother in laws, we headed out to meet the ambulance on the Indian Nation Turnpike. My husband was tearing down the dirt road but kept looking over at me and saying "It doesn't look all that bad." I kept telling him to watch the road over and over again (you know how dangerous winding dirt roads can be). I sang Amazing Grace under my breath the whole trip, and prayed he didn't kill us both on the way to meet the ambulance.

You would think by this time I would be in tremendous pain, but the only place hurting was the bottoms of my feet. My mother in law had given me a wet dish towel to put under my feet. I was told that a propane flash fire gets very hot very fast, and that my nerve endings were burnt off, and that probably accounted for the lack of pain.

We made the 45 minute drive in about 15 to 20 minutes, got on the turnpike, and raced towards McAlester (Oklahoma). It wasn't long before we saw the ambulance that my mother in law had called to meet us. We pulled over and the ambulance made a U-turn across the median.

My legs, arms, face, and waist were burned, so the EMT's weren't sure how to get me out without either doing more damage to me or hurting me. There was no other way but to hook their arms under my shoulders and my knees. It didn't hurt. They put me on the gurney, started an IV of saline solution to keep fluids in my body, and we continued on to the ER in McAlester.

Every now and then I would raise my head and look out the back window so I could see my husband's truck. I don't know why, but that sticks out in my mind. It was probably because of the truck's engine still doing 90 mph after he had put it in park. It ran on propane and I was afraid it was going to blow up. I didn't think I could survive 2 explosions in one day.

After reaching the hospital, and cutting my clothes off, the doctor determined that my burns were too extensive for them to handle. The doctor told my family that my burns were only second degree at that point, but by the time I reached Hillcrest, they would more than likely be third degree.

They called a burn center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and one in Ft Smith, Arkansas to see if one of them would take me. Both said they would and I chose to go to Tulsa's Hillcrest Hospital. They sent a helicopter to pick me up, and if I remember correctly, it was 20 to 30 minutes later when they arrived.

As they were wheeling me out to the chopper, I heard my mother in law say "Kemii, don't worry about the kids. You concentrate on getting well." I was glad to hear that because I was worried about who would take care of them while I was gone

As the EMT's from the chopper were rolling me out, one of them told my husband "Your truck can't keep up with this helicopter so don't try." I thought that was so funny.

Taking off in the helicopter felt kind of like going up in an elevator, only more intense.

I could hear the whirring and chopping of the propeller's blades, and the engine's high pitched whine. Monitor's were beeping and flashing quietly while the EMT worked silently at his paperwork on my left. I tried to lie still but it was my first chopper ride and I wanted to have a look around. I wanted to sit up and ask what each monitor was for. I wanted to look out the window that was just far enough above and to the right of my head, all I could see was that it was dark outside. But I was afraid to move around too much. So far the only pain I felt was on the bottoms of my feet and I wanted to keep it that way. So I settled for just looking at the wall of the chopper on my right, and the EMT on my left. He would look up every time I moved and ask, "Are you hurting?" and I would say, "No, just my feet."

Every now and then the EMT would tell me, "Hang on, we'll be there before too long." For most of the trip I kept going over in my mind how I had come to be in a chopper. The accident seemed at the time to take several minutes but had actually taken only seconds. I started imagining if one of the kids had been in the kitchen with me and I pushed the thought of it away. I was so glad it was God's Will that they be outside when the flash fire occurred.

We landed in Tulsa about 20 minutes after leaving McAlester. As they wheeled me into ER, I heard one of the EMT's say, "She has family on the way." They immediately started stripping away the dead skin, and cleaning me up to prepare me for surgery. They must have given me something because I started feeling whoozy and very relaxed.

There were several people working over me, but the only person I remember was a guy standing on the right side of me. He saw me watching him and he smiled and said, "My name is Tyler, just relax." Whatever they had put in my IV didn't give me much choice. I lay quietly looking at the ear ring in Tyler's ear and thinking to myself how pretty his green eye's were, and how his voice was soothing to hear.

Someone, I think it was the surgeon, leaned down close to my ear, I felt a hand on one side of my head, and a voice said softly, "Kemii, your burns are third degree and it looks like you're going to be here at least thirty days." I just kept my eye's on Tyler till the anesthesia began to take effect and my eye's started to close. As I drifted off, I heard someone say, "We're going to have to put her on the breathing machine." I was too weak to breathe on my own under the anesthetic.

I was alone when I woke up in ICU. It didn't take long to remember where I was and why. It was apparently after visiting hours because the lights were dim, and none of my family were in the room with me. I wasn't feeling any pain so I gently tried to raise my legs one at a time to see how they were and if they were still there. My first burn so I didn't know what to expect.

I was too weak to get them up but there was no pain when I tried, so I wiggled my toes. I sounded a mental "YEAH!" because I could feel my toes and that meant my legs were still attached. Next, I tried raising my arms, gently. I managed to get a look at them one at a time. From what I could tell they were bandaged from the shoulders down, and were strapped to some kind of board in a straight position. I could raise my head enough to see that my feet and legs were bandaged in the same manner. I couldn't raise up too far because of something across my chest. As I looked around the room, I could see a clock on the wall to my left, and an IV stand on my right.

I wondered where my family was, and how the kids were taking this. Over and over, thoughts of the accident would flash through my mind and I would push them away because they were too frightening.

A nurse padded in and checked the monitors and my vital signs. We didn't talk because there were three tubes running through my nose down the back of my throat that were pressing against my vocal cords. I couldn't even whisper (As mouthy as I've become, I bet there are some who wish the tubes had remained permanent). One of the tubes was from the breathing machine and went to my lungs. The other two were run to my stomach for food and medicine.

The nurse could see that I was awake, and she told me her name, but I don't remember what it was. I stared at the syringe she was about to inject into my IV and she said, "This is morphine for the pain." Finishing that, she softly padded out, and I was alone once more. I was feeling very much afraid, and was relieved when the drug started to take effect, and I drifted into forgetful oblivion.

My family was standing over me when I came to the next time. I was glad to see them. Of course I couldn't talk or ask all the questions that were screaming in my head, but they answered most of them when they brought me up to date on my surgery and prognosis. They asked me if I were in any pain. All I could do was shake my head no, but at least I could still do that. I was under heavy sedation so I don't remember anything that was said except that.

I started feeling pain about the third night. Although I didn't remember it, I had been through two surgeries already, and where they had taken good skin from my back and thighs to graft over the burned areas was beginning to hurt. When they take skin from an area, it leaves the nerve endings completely exposed with nothing to act as a buffer. There were four surgeries all together.

My fingers were bandaged and I couldn't bend my arms to press the call button to let someone know I was hurting. The room I was in was completely open to the hallway, and I could see the nurses padding back and forth. but no one looked my direction even though I was waving my arms trying to get someone's attention. I still couldn't talk, so yelling wasn't even an option. It was like one of my dreams where I would try to yell and could make no sound come out of my mouth.

I felt like I was in a nightmare and would surely wake up soon to the alarm clock buzzing at 5am signaling that it was time to get up and get the kids ready for the school bus. But I knew it was real from the pain i was feeling. I've never felt physical pain in my dreams.

A nurse finally came to my rescue. She came in the room all smiles and sunny faced and had the nerve to ask me, "Are you in pain? Your monitor's at the nurses station show you're feeling some discomfort." If I could've raised up out of that bed, I believe I would have showed her a thing or two about discomfort while I cheerfully strangled her perky little neck. I wanted to yell, "If you've got monitor's at the nurses station TELLING you when I'm in SOME DISCOMFORT, where the hell were you 15 minutes ago!?" But I couldn't so I lay there nodding my head yes.

About a week into my stay I started fighting with them about the breathing machine, trying to make them understand that I felt like I was suffocating with it on me. I got pretty upset about it so they took the breathing and feeding tubes out of my nose. I could talk just above a whisper now.

They started taking me to a room where they bathed me in a tub that looked like some of the watering troughs we used on our ranch for the horses and cows. They called it the TRAUMA tank. There would be four or five people working on me at once, male and female. The pain of having my burns scrubbed to keep out any infection made me forget about any sense of modesty, and although they always gave me a dose of morphine just before going, and halfway through the bath, it was never enough to take the pain away. It barely dulled it at all. I dreaded waking up in the mornings because I knew at 9 o'clock I would be headed for the tank room and another hour of unrelenting pain.

There are three nurses in particular that stand out in my memory because of their personalities.

Frank was a cocky Indian with long hair down his back. I teased him about needing a hair cut. Sometimes he would hurt me more than usual during my bath, not on purpose, and I would threaten to kick him in the head, jokingly of course. I couldn't even walk, so there was no way I could kick anybody *L*. He would throw back his head and laugh so hard he couldn't continue bathing me. I had to joke, and act tough because inside I really wanted to cry and scream from the pain.

Mary was the mothering type. She was my "Mom" in the tank room because my real mom wasn't allowed in there.

Bobbie was a black lady with a good sense of humor and a very gentle touch. She was always so encouraging. I asked her one time about other people she had worked on and she said, "I've seen them worse than this and they made it, you're going to be just fine. Trust in God and you will be just fine."

After my bath each morning, I would go through an hour of physical therapy. In the beginning that wasn't too painful but as a burn heals the skin tightens, and after time, you have to force that skin to stretch. It has to be done every day or the skin will bind up in one position. In my case, my arms bound up in a bent position.

My physical therapy continued after I went home, but after a month or so I was going through even more pain because I didn't have morphine to dull it, and the tylox they prescribed me just wasn't enough to do it. The constant pain caused severe depression, and since they didn't counsel me before leaving the hospital, I didn't know how to deal with it and I gave up.

The pain was constant and I couldn't even sleep to get a few hours relief from it. The doctors wouldn't prescribe anything that would help me sleep. After a while, in my mind, I felt I would go through the rest of my life dealing with that pain, and I started feeling hopeless. It was bad enough that I couldn't bathe myself, feed myself, or take care of my own kids. But to deal with the pain and see no end in sight, was enough to make me think of suicide. I wished that I had died in the accident. I wanted to take one of our guns and kill myself. My family took the bullets out of all the guns and hid them.

I quit therapy and stayed home by myself most of the time dealing not only with the physical, but also the mental pain the best I could. My arms bound up and wouldn't straighten and I didn't care. I just wanted the pain to go away, the memory of the accident to go away, and the people to go away. It bothered me to see other people doing normal things like using a fork, brushing their hair, walking across the room. I could do none of those things.

I didn't understand why this had happened to me. I was angry at God and asked Him, "WHY? What did I do to deserve this!?" I wanted to go back in time but knew that was impossible and it made me angrier.

After a few months the pain was gone. My arms had begun to straighten slowly with a little determination on my part, some help from God, and a lot of prayers from friends and family.

I feel I should mention that at the same time I was dealing with the trauma of getting burned, I was also becoming a domestic violence victim.

I knew before the explosion that my husband had a tendency to drink too much. What I didn't know was how deeply he was involved with drugs. I thought he earned his living from driving his log truck. As it turns out he was and is one of the major drug dealers in my home town

I didn't find out till he brought his "work" home with him one day. I guess he thought I wouldn't care. Or maybe he figured I wouldn't leave. After all, I was covered with scars and looked like a skeleton at a 100 pounds or so. Who else would have me? We argued constantly about his drugs.

The abuse started out with little things. Leaving me home all day with my 5 year old son knowing I couldn't cook for us, verbal abuse, or sometimes he would come in at 2 or 3 in the morning, I would be up reading, and whether I said anything or not, he would knock the book out of my hands, drag me to my feet, and sling me around by the collar of whatever I was wearing. I've learned since then that there is a psychological term for people who've done wrong that act that way.

It wasn't long before the abuse became worse. He never doubled up his fists and hit me. He would just put his gun to my head and threaten to shoot me. Or he would verbally abuse the kids knowing that would upset me.

I left him several times. But always went back thinking he would keep his word and treat us right. And by that time I was convinced I would always be alone if I didn't stay with him. During all of this, I wanted to be dead. But as time went on, I wanted other people to be dead also. My mother in law who thought I deserved the abuse from her son, the people in the drug business with him, and I wanted my husband and his girlfriend dead too. I planned everything out and had a list of everyone, including myself, who were going to die.

I left him and went to the town where I graduated and where my father lives. By this time, I could do everything for myself and didn't care if anyone wanted me or not. I had to get away. I got on my feet after my disability checks started, and began thinking about going back to school. After about 3 months my husband showed up with his promises and I believed him once again. I thought if we stayed away from my home town, our problems would go away, so I let him move in. They didn't.

Things were good for about 2 weeks. Then the abuse started again. I found out he had stored something you use to make crank with in the kids closet. Whatever it was had flammable stickers and warnings all over it. When I found it, I asked a friend what it could possibly be for. When my friend told me it was an ingredient used to make crank, my husband and I had a huge fight.

After a few months of his drugs, drinking and continual verbal and physical abuse, I tried to kill myself with some pills. Then I tried again. And again. I was too chicken to do it with a gun.

I started to think more and more about the plans I had made, and the list of people to kill. My mom came to visit and I opened up to her. She didn't know about my homicidal thoughts or my suicide attempts. She made me give her my pistol, and convinced me that I needed to check myself into a mental unit. She helped me locate one that would take me, and I checked myself in. My husband didn't want me to get help even though he was fully aware of my suicidal and homicidal thoughts. I don't think he comprehended just how close he was to death, or maybe he had a death wish. I decided to check myself in regardless of what he wanted. That's when my journey to becoming a SURVIVOR began.

The mental unit was locked at all times because there were also substance abusers there. One was only 14 and had been given drugs by his mother as far back as his preschool years. We were escorted everywhere we went. They checked on me every 15 minutes the first 24 hours because I was a suicide risk. We had group therapy everyday where we could say anything that was on our mind and not be punished for it. I stayed quiet the first few times. Someone mentioned "forgiving and forgetting", and that's when I started letting the anger out.

I grew up in church (we were called Holy Rollers), and I firmly believe in forgiveness. I felt I was a worthless person for being angry at God for getting burned. I felt even lower because hard as I tried, I couldn't forgive my husband for abusing me when I was at my lowest. He would use my Christianity against me by saying "the Bible says you should be submissive" or if I said anything unlady like, "you're a real Christian aren't you?" As far as my husband and his mother felt, I deserved everything he did to me and I should turn the other cheek.

I was so confused spiritually and so depressed till a counseler told me something that made sense concerning the forgive and forget issue. If you reach to pet a dog and it bites you (like a friends pet or a dog protecting it's master's property), you don't necessarily hold a grudge against the dog or kill it, but you do remember for your own safety not to try and pet it again. When I heard that, it was like a heavy burden had been taken off my heart. I understood that it's FOOLISH and UNSAFE to forget some offenses, which makes it OK to remember. It was such a relief to let go of that. The counselers on the mental unit also taught me how to deal with problems without using suicide as a solution. They showed me that my problems could be overcome with the right problem solving skills. My life didn't seem hopeless anymore.

While in the mental unit, the state took custody of my 3 children. I had called my mother to talk to her about the visit coming up with my kids and my husband. I was so excited and happy about the upcoming visit. She informed me that if my husband was there, she couldn't bring the kids to see me. When I got upset and asked her why, she told me that the state had custody of the kids and had placed them in her care. She said that the kids had talked to someone and revealed that my husband had been letting Kayla and Jimmy drink alcohol and smoke cigarettes and had "touched" my daughter Stephanie. I couldn't comprehend what I was hearing. Sexual abuse? I could see the other happening because my husband was a mean, evil, and warped person, but sexual abuse? My mind was screaming NO! I thought my family hated him so much they were willing to accuse him of anything that would work to split us up. I didn't want to believe it. I refused to believe it. I went deep into denial. I was so angry at what I thought my family was trying to do, I decided I had to get out of the mental unit. I had to go get my kids back. The people in charge didn't want to release me because I hadn't finished the program but I refused to stay. They finally agreed to release me early.

As soon as I could, I went to Child Welfare to find out what was going on. They told me the same thing my mother had. They accused my husband of verbal, physical, and sexual abuse. I was charged with neglect because I didn't leave him. I told them I wasn't aware of the alcohol, cigarettes, and I didn't believe there had been any sexual abuse. They made it clear that staying while he abused ME was neglecting THEM. I couldn't understand any of it. Why was I being punished for something he was doing? I couldn't have my kids back until my husband and I took the proper steps. Counseling and parenting classes. I cried, I screamed, I told them they were wrong for doing this to me and my kids. They woudln't budge. I didn't mind having to get counseling and going to parenting classes, but deep down I think I knew it was something my husband wouldn't do even though I hoped that he would. He said he would go through the steps but he didn't feel like he had done anything wrong. At the time, I didn't realize just how sick it was for him to think that way or how sick I was to stay with a man who thought that way. Giving children alcohol and cigarettes? But, I continued to hope that it could all be worked out, we would get the kids back and be a family again.

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