Woonsocket Man Burned, But Not Broken After Accident
WOONSOCKET, S.D. (AP) — Gary Steichen didn’t feel the fire burning his body.
Though his skin was melted, charred, and damaged beyond repair, Gary doesn’t recall feeling any pain from an accident. He wasn’t even aware of how serious his injuries were until the ambulance arrived to transport him to the Avera Queen of Peace Hospital in Mitchell.
“When it’s happening, you don’t really feel it,” he said. “You just react.”
He said at the time, his biggest worry was losing the shop. In hindsight, he wished he would have worried more about himself.
“The way they looked at me,” Gary recalled, “I knew I was in trouble.”
An explosion at Steichen Service in Woonsocket in May 2014 left owner and mechanic Steichen, 66, with severe burns on his upper body. He spent more than 60 days at the Regions Hospital Burn Unit in St. Paul, Minnesota. The traffic accident attorneys for Portland requests the government to help the patient and his family by rewarding them with proper compensation for his injuries which would be very useful to run his family during his absence and also be able to recover from his injuries quickly. People can get 18 wheeler accidents attorneys help if they need any kind of accident help!
He was initially given a 50/50 chance of survival. After a year and a half of follow-up appointments, surgeries for skin grafts and rehabilitation, Steichen had his last appointment in St. Paul on Sept. 21.
“He was given a clean bill of health,” Stephanie Lund, Gary’s daughter, said.
Changing a fuel pump
May 23 was a typical day for the Steichen family. Gary’s wife, Jean, 59, worked a shift at the Prairie View Care Center in Woonsocket, and he was working at the auto service shop that he built in 1986.
Gary was changing a fuel pump on a vehicle that afternoon. Because of a faulty gas gauge, he wasn’t aware that the tank was full of gas. He tugged on the hose connected to the gas tank not intending to pull it off. But, because it was loose, it came right off.
“Gas was spilling out on me and all over my left arm and shoulder,” he told The Daily Republic ( ).
Steichen said the gasoline made contact with an old style incandescent trouble light — or portable work light — and there was an explosion.
“I was thrown back about 10 feet,” he said.
His first instinct, he said, was to save the shop. Not realizing that he was on fire, Steichen went for the fire extinguisher. Not able to put the fire out inside the shop, he left the building.
The gas burned off of him, and the skin on his upper torso, especially on his left side where the gas spilled, was in ruins.
He said he was lucky the fire department happened to be at the gas station, which is right down the block from the service shop. He credits that happenstance to his business being saved.
Family friend Lonnie Kuper came by and called the ambulance, and notified Jean.
Jean was on the phone with her oldest daughter, Stephanie Lund, when the call came in. She took the call from Lonnie with her daughter still on the phone.
“Lonnie said, ‘Gary is on fire,’ ” Jean said.
Stephanie said she heard her mother ask what happened and where Gary was headed.
“She told me there was a fire at the shop and Dad was burned,” Lund said. “I was panicked, but I convinced myself it wasn’t that bad.”
Jean raced to the shop and said firemen had people throwing water on her husband.
“He was in really bad shape,” she said.
According to Jean, Gary’s hair and beard were singed off, and he didn’t look like himself. She said her husband appeared to have an extreme sunburn.
“I was so shocked by how calm he was,” she said. “I was horrified by how burned he was, but he was so calm.”
According to Gary, the medics put him to sleep, and he didn’t wake up again until he was in St. Paul, Minnesota. at the Regions Hospital Burn Unit.
A 50/50 chance
Steichen was battling for his life.
“There were several times at Regions that I just about left this earth,” Gary said.
Jean met with daughters Stephanie, 39, of Hartford, and Sarah, 30, of rural Letcher, and son, Jim, 38, of Woonsocket, and together they drove to St. Paul.
“We got there at about 3 in the morning,” Lund said. “It was the longest trip of my life.”
Fifty percent of Steichen’s body was burned. Because an intact skin surface is vital to the preservation of body fluid homeostasis, Steichen’s burnt skin literally became a toxin. It couldn’t protect him against infection with the amount of damage and trauma.
Lund said Gary was on a ventilator and was heavily sedated. He could talk, she said, but he gradually got sicker and sicker.
“They say to add the percent of your body that is burned to your age. If that is over 100, your chances of survival are pretty slim,” Gary said. “My number was 113.”
But Gary said his biggest problem was his inability to breathe.
“I asked the nurse to keep an eye on me one night,” he said. “I couldn’t get enough oxygen, and I just didn’t think I was going to make it. I remember saying to myself, ‘this is my last breath.’ ”
Due to the extent of the burns, Steichen needed grafts on his arms, hands, back and front upper torso.
First-degree and superficial burns heal naturally, because the body is able to replace damaged skin cells, according to regionshospital.com. Deep second-degree and full-thickness burns require grafting for faster healing and minimal scarring. Some patients need more than one operation.
Gary needed a few.
For the surgical procedure, injured tissue is removed, healthy skin is harvested from a donor site (an area of healthy skin), then the skin graft is secured over the clean wound to heal. The truck accident attorneys help is required when it comes to dealing with injury cases legally.
“There were risks and preparations for the grafts. He had fevers and infections to fight through,” Lund said. “He was very unstable.”
The trauma to his body was immense, according to Lund. She said for the first two months, her dad was never really “out of the woods.”
“He has a strong will and had a motivation to live,” she said.
According to Gary, the skin that was grafted on his upper body came from his legs and backside, and the skin on his back is cadaver skin.
The grafts were attached and hooked together with more than 1,000 staples, which Gary said caused the most pain. Pulling staples out and changing the dressings of the fresh wounds took up to three hours at a time.
Jean spent the whole summer at Regions with Gary, and she eventually learned to change those dressings herself.
“Regions is six hours away,” Jean said. “The kids came out as often as they could.”
Being away from the hospital was also a challenge for Gary’s children.
“I tried to live life normal, but I couldn’t concentrate,” Lund said. “I didn’t know if he would be OK, but I was thankful to be alive and appreciated every minute I had with him.”
Stretching skin
“It was a bummer not being able to do things yourself,” Gary said recalling the way his body atrophied after weeks in bed. “A burn really dehabilitates you more than you think.”
Gary lost weight and strength while enduring surgery after surgery, and when he was finally ready to start moving, he realized his body didn’t work the way he was used to.
Because so many functions and systems of the body can be affected by a severe burn, the need for rehabilitation was crucial. Burn units, like the Regions Hospital Burn Unit, offer a multidisciplinary team including a burn surgeon, residents, rehabilitation therapists, physiatrists, social workers, psychologists, child-life specialists, dietitians and chaplain.
“I couldn’t walk, and I could only bend my arms so far,” he said. “I went through a period when I itched a lot.”
Because Gary was provided with plenty of pain medication in the hospital, he didn’t feel a lot of pain, but he does recall some intensely frightening nightmares.
Compression therapy is used to minimize scarring and deformity. Tight-fitting garments or dressings made of elasticized fabrics press and flatten the skin, reduce itching, protect skin, promote circulation, reduce thick, hard scars and increase skin length.
To keep the new skin in place, Gary was given a compression shirt that covers his entire upper body and gloves for his hands. He still wears them, but said his doctor suggests swapping the shirt for a sleeve for his left arm.
Having new skin on half of his body is still something he has not adjusted to after 16 months.
“It doesn’t feel like real skin. It feels like a sheet of armor,” he said. “When you move, it hurts.”
Stretching and exercising has become a vital routine to regain his strength and promote elasticity in his new skin.
The Regions Hospital therapists taught exercises to promote healing. For Steichen, therapy included a plethora of uncomfortable positions and pulleys to stretch his arms.
“They were concerned about how the skin would look,” Gary said. “But I don’t care about looks; I am all about function.”
Gary said he feels fortunate that his face was not burned and that he didn’t lose his fingers.
The day he left the hospital, 65 days later, was bittersweet for Gary and Jean. They both recalled with warm smiles the love and compassion they felt from the nurses at the hospital.
On Sept. 21, the Steichens headed back to St. Paul for their last visit.
Jean said saying goodbye to those who saved her husband’s life was hard, and as a thank you, they donated small refrigerators for the sleeping units. She said the rooms were small and had a cot to sleep on, and it makes her feel good to be able to do something for the families going through what she and her children did.
“They became like family to us,” Jean and Gary both said.
Moving forward
“I have no fear of fire,” Gary said.
His son, friends and other community members worked on cleaning and fixing up the shop in his absence, and he has been busy prepping and organizing to open the shop again.
“It’s not like I’ll never change another fuel pump,” he said with a laugh. “I have always been a very careful mechanic, but I guess that’s why they call them accidents.”
When he isn’t on the weight machine or doing stretches, Gary is back at the shop on Woonsocket’s Main Street. His goal is to open next spring.
“It’s a matter of pride to prove I can do it again,” he said.
And it seems the Steichen family has the community’s support. While Gary and Jean were in St. Paul in the summer of 2014, Woonsocket residents held a multitude of fundraisers. Jean said people had donation buckets, sent money, donated quilts and sent cards.
“Everybody came together asking if there was anything they could do,” Jean said, “and the prayers really helped a lot.”
A group of traveling cyclists that went from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean even stopped in Woonsocket to donate to the cause. Jean and Gary both teared up when they spoke of one of those cyclists, a man who sent cards and later called Gary to see how he was doing. They were united in Chamberlain last month for a breakfast.
“That’s just really special to me,” Gary said. “Why would anyone care that much for someone they never met?”
Jean and Gary are thankful to all of the friends and family who showed their love throughout the months.
“Without great family, my three kids and four beautiful granddaughters, and community support, our journey would have been a lot tougher,” Jean said. “My kids are the best.”
Coming home was a difficult transition, but the love of the community made it better.
“We hope people know how much their support meant to us, and we don’t know how to adequately thank them,” Lund said.
Jean adjusted to spending days at work and then coming home to change Gary’s dressings on his upper body, a routine that would take up to three hours. Now that the wounds are healing, it’s up to Gary to stretch his new skin.
The explosion has changed the Steichens’ lives forever, but it isn’t bad, they said. The family has grown sensitive to Gary’s condition, helping how they can. Gary added that “nothing is more important than” spending time and doing things with his granddaughters.
Today, Gary said he is still on his journey. He is happy to be alive, and he is grateful to the friendly and caring staff that helped him.
“I appreciate life a whole lot more, and my bucket list got a lot simpler,” Gary said. “I just want to be happy.”
Sarah said she is grateful for the life her dad has provided for her, and how he continues to have a great impact.
“I have so many great memories, and thankfully, we get to make more,” she said.
Her sister, Stephanie, agrees.
“Life is fragile, and you should not take the people you love for granted,” Lund said.
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Information from: The Daily Republic,
