- You wanna touch the skin?
- Okay.
Oh wow, that is really bumpy and hard.
- Yeah it's like really tough now.
(whimsical music)
- Hi I'm Daniel.
- Hi I'm Ellie.
Nice to meet you.
- Ainsley.
- I'm Daniel, good to meet ya.
- Good to meet you too.
- You excited to be here?
- Mm-hmm.
- Nervous?
- No.
- Good.
- What are we here to talk about?
- I was hoping you knew. (laughs)
So is there anything different about my skin
or anything that you notice?
- Just a little bit more raised than the average person.
- Yeah. - Not that much.
- Do you notice anything different about me?
- Your face is a little bit more white.
- It's a little more white.
- And part of your face kinda looks like a mask.
- It looks like a mask?
Like this line right here?
- Mm-hmm.
- Okay yeah we'll talk about that.
So I'm a burn survivor.
- What's a burn survivor?
- Well basically I'm a burn survivor.
So I was burned about 65% of my body.
- Wow.
- You ever gotten burned before?
- No.
- Good.
It's not very fun. (laughs)
- I believe that.
(laughs)
- Well one time I was making pancakes
for my family
and I burnt myself on the pot.
- Oh yeah?
- Yeah. - That's like the most
common you hear.
- (laughs) Yeah.
- Pretty painful isn't it?
- [Ainsley] Yeah.
- What happened when you got burned?
- So I got burned about two and a half years ago.
And I was a wild land firefighter,
meaning that I would fight any fires outside of the city.
- That's cool.
- That is cool. - Yeah it was
a really cool job.
But it kinda backfired one day
and I ended up being caught in a really bad forest fire.
All the trees started erupting in fire
and we hopped in our fire engine
and we tried to get out of the area
and we ended up crashing our engine.
And I immediately caught fire
and I had to get out of the truck and run through it.
- How hot was it?
- It was really hot.
Hot enough to melt my clothes
and it basically melted my boots
and it melted my helmet.
So that part, that's like my normal skin.
That's what my skin used to look like.
And so I had a watch right there that I was wearing.
The watch melted though
but luckily it saved my skin.
'Cause the good thing is, a watch is replaceable.
- Did you have the receipt?
- (laughs) I wish I did.
- Oh!
- I know.
- I have a question.
What happened to your hands?
- Between probably digging into the ground
to move up the hill
and then just having the fire,
an open flame,
hit my hands it just burnt them
and burnt them bad enough the tips of my fingers,
everyone except my pinky had to be amputated.
- Wait, your pinky? - Oh so that's why you're
missing finger nails?
- Yep, exactly.
So I have one finger nail left.
Right here on my pinky.
- Oh I like it.
- Yeah (laughs)
- What did it feel like to be burned?
- When I first stepped into the fire,
it hurt and then all of a sudden you don't really feel it.
You're just thinking about getting away from it.
And then once I got out of the fire,
that's when it really started hurting.
- Does the rest of the body have the burn?
- Yeah.
So I'll show you my arms.
They're obviously burnt.
They have this kind of like a crazy
checkered pattern on them.
- Yeah I think that looks cool.
- It's like kinda tough.
- Oh wow, that is really bumpy and hard.
- It feels kinda like bumpy.
- It kinda feels like scaly, I don't know.
- It feels cool.
- Yeah it does.
- So my legs.
I was wearing boots
and so you can see this perfect line here.
So thankfully my boots
they saved my feet.
- Did some of your friends get burnt?
- Yeah so that day there was lots of other firefighters
who were trying to fight the fire.
And three of my buddies,
they actually didn't make it.
And they ended up passing away.
It's really sad to think about
that the guys didn't make it.
- I'm glad you survived.
- Thank you, I'm glad I did too.
I'm glad I get to be here
and not out there fighting fire anymore. (laughs)
- Did you get bored in the hospital?
- Oh my gosh, I got so bored.
Yeah.
- Did you have a T.V. in there?
- Yes luckily I had a T.V.
- Okay good.
(laughs)
- Was it hard to eat?
- My mouth kinda scarred shut.
And so I could only open my mouth like that much.
- Is it painful at all at times?
- Yeah.
The best way I can describe it is
if you put your clothes in the dryer really high heat
and they shrink.
That's basically what my skin is.
It's kinda just shrunk all around me as it healed.
- Will it ever look the same?
- It'll still always have scars
and the whiteness and discoloration.
- So that's really not bad at all.
But it's cool.
- Yeah, thanks.
(laughs)
Yeah it's getting better.
It used to be really red.
- Do you have any nightmares about the fire now?
- You know surprisingly
I don't have a lot of nightmares about it.
But there are times where I have anxiety.
If I'm near a wildfire,
I get really anxious and nervous.
But you know I still enjoy a good campfire.
And fire is something that you shouldn't be scared of
but it's important to be safe around it.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
- So you don't wanna play with it.
You don't wanna ever start one.
But I wouldn't be completely scared of it.
- Is it okay to use fire to kill flies?
- To kill flies?
Well I don't really like flies so. (laughs)
(buzzing)
I don't know if I'd use fire to kill the flies.
(buzzing)
But maybe use a fly-swatter. (laughs)
- Yeah.
- Hey I'm Daniel Lyon
and thanks for watchin' Kids Meet a Burn Survivor.
If you want to learn more about me,
check for a link in the description.
Don't forget to subscribe to HiHo
and check out more Kids Meet videos.
See ya.
(whimsical music)