Who by Fire : Helping burn victims and their families

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Chaim's Story

The house was filled with the wonderful smells of Erev Shabbat. Chaim, my two and a half year old and I had just made challah together and it was baking in the oven. My three and a half year old Shifra was at gan. Chaim and Miriam, my baby, were playing nicely in the kitchen. My husband Avi and I were talking while I cooked and he arranged the ingredients for the chilli he was planning to make.

It was an erev Shabbat pretty much like any other erev Shabbat. And then suddenly... it wasn’t. I saw it happening before it actually happened but I couldn’t do anything to stop it. A pot of boiling water that was sitting on the fire suddenly fell off the stove and landed right on top of my sweet precious Chaim. We all screamed and must have made quite a ruckus because my neighbors on either side both came running to see if we needed help. We grabbed Chaim and Miriam and ran upstairs. Chaim went straight into the bathtub and Miriam, Avi and I were unscathed. Avi – the calmest person I know was in a panic. Our sweet boy was screaming and screaming and screaming in agony!

My neighbor Esther took Miriam and arranged to get Shifra from school. My neighbor Leah cleaned up the mess on the kitchen floor, Avi and I put Chaim in the car and drove him straight to the hospital. He screamed and screamed and pulled at his skin. I drove, while Avi sat with him and tried to soothe him and keep him from pulling on the burns. He screamed in the emergency room, he screamed while they treated him and admitted him to the hospital. For two hours he screamed. “Water fall on me!! Get big boo boo!! Hurt me a lot!!! I don’t like this!!!
AAAAAAAAA”

I returned home before Shabbat to be with our daughters and Avi remained in the hospital. Thankfully, Avi, who is a doctor, did not mention to me that burns are one of the top causes of death among children. Had I known that, a torturous Shabbat away from my baby would have been unbearable. As it was, I was able to take care of my other children, confident that he would get the best care possible.

When I spoke with Avi after Shabbat, I found out that while Chaim’s burns (Thank You G-d a million times) were not life threatening, they were serious. He had a mixture of first, second and third degree burns on the right side of his face, back, shoulder and chest and hand.

My initial reaction was to just be happy that he made it through Shabbat and was not in any major danger. But, when I got to the hospital and saw his face swollen and burnt beyond recognition, I was once again on a roller coaster of emotion.

When a child is in the hospital, someone needs to be with him twenty four hours a day. Avi and I began a rotation to cover the time in the hospital. We got lots of offers for help but basically, I think we were treading water. “As soon as I am able to think what I need help with, I will tell you,” I kept telling people anxious to help.

We were very blessed to be surrounded by people who could see our need. One neighbor arrived at our house, pen in hand and started taking notes about what I might need. Another neighbor who worked at the school started sending girls to help with the other children. Food arrived, phone calls came on a regular basis and friends offered moral support. One friend came to relieve our constant vigil at the hospital so that Avi and I could have a few minutes together to plan our course of action.

Chaim’s burns were serious but as I said, Thank G-d not life threatening. He was in the hospital so that the doctors could watch the healing of the burns but he wasn’t sick. The main question the doctors were concerned with was “would he need a skin graft?”

Chaim’s burns were awful to look at and very visible. People would stare at us as we walked up and down the hallway in his stroller. I was walking through the halls of the hospital when a Chassidic teenage girl who was visiting her brother stopped me. “Excuse me,” she said. “Does your son have burns?”
I responded affirmatively.

“I want to let you know,” she said “that last Channukah I got a terrible burn. My parents took me to this amazing lady in Jerusalem who specializes in burns. She treated me and I do not have even the slightest scar.” The girl pointed to a beautiful face without a trace of a burn. She then called her mom to get me the phone number of the woman in case I wanted to call her.

The next day a woman from chaplaincy services came to visit. She told us about her neighbor’s granddaughter who had suffered a burn and been taken to a miracle healer. She gave us her friend’s name and phone number and told us to call her.

That evening during Avi’s shift in the hospital several other people stopped him to tell him about the same lady.

I told him that I had her phone number. Our discomfort with his treatment in the hospital combined with our tendency towards low intervention natural treatments and the outstanding unsolicited references we kept getting convinced us that it was worth giving her a call. We contacted Mrs. G. and scheduled an appointment to bring Chaim over for a visit. We also spoke with our Rav who knows the medical system in Israel very well. He said that he has heard amazing things about Mrs. G. and we should follow her advice.

We began treatment with Mrs. G. and brought Chaim home. We followed her advice and with the help of Hashem, today Chaim’s face has not a single scar and all that remains of his physical burn is a cell phone size scar of rubbery skin. He Baruch Hashem has full use of his arm and has even grown new freckles on his face.

While Chaim’s burn passed without major scars, for many people this is not the case. We were blessed to have a supportive community, enough financial resources to pay for expensive pressure garments, a grandmother who flew half way around the world to offer us emotional support. I didn’t work and was able to take time to bring him for monthly visits to the hospital to visit the physical therapist. Avi is a doctor and understood the intricacies of the medical system or else could find someone who did. We were especially blessed to have a strong marriage which could withstand the stress that the burn put on the family.

Our treatment continued for a year and a half. I would speak to friends who had been involved in the initial stages and they would say with amazement, “Wow, you are still dealing with this.”

I believe that while Chaim has healed, in certain ways I will always be “still dealing with this.” I am in a panic on Purim, when the children play with firecrackers. This year I volunteered in a forest before Lag B’Omer in order to “do my part” for keeping kids safe from burns. We speak with families who have children who have received burns and my husband speaks with families who wonder about the medical implications of alternative burn treatments. Two years later, I know that I am a different person because of Chaim’s burn. The miracle that Hashem did for my family, in keeping my son well, is always with me.

Several days after Purim, I was at the physical therapist, having Chaim’s pressure garment fitted when he complained that he was hungry. The OT brought him a treat from a bag of shaloch manot prepared by Chaya Malka Abramson. We got to speaking about her book and the OT lent me a copy. I was mesmerized by her story and so impressed by her gratitude. I realized that I really wanted to help her.

I am writing this story in the hopes that you will understand the serious nature of a burn. A burn can happen to any person in any family at any moment. It is a traumatic situation that can G-d forbid cause a crisis of faith, the breakdown of the family unit, serious financial burdens, serious scarring, or death. The Chaya Malka Burn Foundation helps families to receive emotional, spiritual, physical and financial support in order to ease the hardships faced by families with burns. Sometimes help from an outside source who has been there before is what is necessary to withstand life’s tests and come out stronger.

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