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3: Hospital *WARNING - GRAFFIC IMAGES

Writer's picture: John QuinnJohn Quinn

Updated: Oct 26, 2021

HOSPITAL

My wife Alison is one strong woman. Our love is true. We have been together since we were 17! I am so lucky to have met her when I did and experienced all of the things we have experienced together. We have travelled the world and I wouldn’t want anyone else by my side. There have been so many adventures we have been on. Here comes an adventure of a different kind. Hand in hand, we'll do this together to. For better or worse, till death do us part. But fuck you death. Not now, you’ll have to wait. We had one child at the time and were trying for another. Only 4 months earlier we had a miscarriage. To date, that was the most devastating thing we have been through together. We lost the baby at the 11-week mark.

The burns I received covered 40% of my body. Including my knob and ballbag. I was going to write scrotum, but honestly who else but medical professionals even say scrotum? Unless of course you are calling your mate one. When Ali arrived all I could think of was how we were not going to be able to try for another baby for, who knows how long. When I told Ali the extent of my burns she whispered to me, “I found out today Im pregnant.” Just like that all the pain went away. I was overcome with a mix of emotions. Earlier that day Ali was waiting for me to come home so she could tell me the good news herself. But I never came home. And as I mentioned earlier, work never called Ali to let her know what happened and that I was in hospital. The first she knew of what had happened, was when two police officers knocked at the door. It was now passed 6pm, a long time after my accident.


Im a firm believer that everything happens for a reason. Maybe we lost the baby at 11 weeks because the stress Ali was about to go through, would have had a negative effect on the pregnancy/baby. Or maybe the universe just decided that we couldn’t have handled my recovery and a newborn at the same time. Well, what the fk universe. How about just dont let me get electrocuted!? But, as I said, everything happens for a reason. Now I just need to wait until the reason behind this accident presents itself to me.


I don’t recall this, but Ali said when she first came to see me, I spoke of following a light. I said I had this dream or vision where I was at the airport, ticket in hand ready to board a plane. As I handed my ticket to the airhostess at the entrance to the plane, she looked at my ticket and said, you’re not on this flight, you need to go back. There were people on the plane, and they were all looking at me telling me this wasn’t the flight for me. Creepy!

My memory of week one is super hazy. My older brother and younger sister were working away at the time, and both had flown back immediately to be by my side. I remember my sister saying, "you know, if you wanted to get us all together you could have just asked". But I don't do things in halves, or the easy way, they know this. I was on a lot of pain meds and wasn’t doing a whole lot except for lying in bed. I remember my mate Joe and his Dad coming to see me right as I was being wheeled to another room, maybe icu or something. It was good to see them. Joe was my best mate through high school and his parents were like a second family to me. These days I struggle with connecting with people and generally stick to myself and my family at home, but those connections with certain people will never change. For me, this experience has really narrowed the group of people I trust and am comfortable around. The psych tells me this is all about finding or returning to “our tribe”. I like that. It has been refreshing to come back to my tribe, the people I am closest to, and have alot of love for.


With these types of injuries there is a big focus on movement. Daily, the docs and physios would try and get me to stand or move my limbs. The first day I was asked to stand I remember the pain was immense! A common theme with this whole experience actually. Everything hurt so much, all of the time. I tried telling them I felt sick, all the while standing and trying to walk on the spot. The pain was that intense I threw up. My feeding tube went into my mouth and I had to pull it back through my nose so they could put it back in. I fkn hated that thing. But for the first week it was pretty handy as I didnt have to eat. There was never a part of me that even thought to say no, when I was being asked to move. I think I was curious to see what I could do. And also, I have this stubbornness when I can’t do something, I will push and push until I get it. This attribute was about to become very valuable to me.

Around about the same time I recall sliding in and out of drowsiness as a doctor was trying to put an arterial line in my arm. He was making an absolute balls of it! I rolled over and said to Ali, ‘what’s going on, what’s he doing to my arm?” Blood was dripping down my forearm as this butcher kept missing the right spot. I still have a scar on my arm from it. Another doctor scrubbed up and put it in first go. 10 points to that guy. Im pretty sure that was the same doctor Ali asked if I survived because I was fit. He bluntly replied "nope, he's just lucky. He should be dead. But his fitness will help in his recovery".


The only other thing I remember from that first week was day 1, being cleaned by the nurses and wrapped up in a special material for burns. I felt in high spirits. That was definitely the drugs. My superficial burns were not that bad at the time. This is because electrical burns burn you from the inside out, and we needed to wait a few days to see the full extent of the damage. Little did I know there was still a 48hr window where I could have died. My poor family had to wait 48 hours to see if I would survive. With electrical burns, the biggest killer is the damage to internal organs and the heart. For this reason, I was in ICU for 4 days constantly monitored for signs of organ damage and arrhythmia. Somehow, I missed all of the internal damage and heart problems. I can’t believe how lucky I am. Here are some photos of the damage from 3 days after the incident:


Once the high risk stage was passed I was moved up to the burns ward. I had no concept of time, but I needed something to focus on so I asked a nurse how long I would be in hospital for. “for burns your size allow 6 weeks”. Sweet, I can do that. Let’s take it day by day, 6 weeks isn’t that long. I remember telling this news to Ali. Me: “..which is awesome because Ive already been in here for 3 weeks” Ali: “You’ve been in here 3 days”. Well shit. That was very deflating to hear. I honestly thought I had been in there for 3 weeks. But like I said, I had no concept of time right now.

Mentally I was finding it tough. I felt very confused as I was so drowsy and constantly in and out of consciousness. I couldn’t bare to see my daughter in that first week. I felt I wouldn’t handle it very well, and I needed to be ready for whatever emotions that interaction was going to throw at me. I also didn’t want any lasting memories to be traumatic for her. Even now almost 3 years on she will still mention coming to visit me in hospital and will often talk about burns. “make sure you put your sunscreen on, or you will get burnt like daddy”.


I didn’t want to communicate with anyone outside of my immediate family. The media would call the hospital daily to see if they could speak to us. The nurses were on to it though as we had already said we wanted to be left alone. I started to write a diary as I was finding it hard to remember things. Its good to be able to look back on certain days and remember how I felt or see how significant events during recovery affected me. Writing was exhausting though. It was so hard to focus, and I felt like it took every ounce of energy to write a sentence. After writing a line or two I would need to stop and rest, as if I was running a race or something. Luckily my right arm escaped any serious burns, except for some superficial damage to my thumb and one finger. This was a godsend! I could use that good arm to brush my teeth, feed myself (later when I started eating again), drink, and also attempt to escape. Yes, Escape. But Ill get to that story soon...

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