The Night I Burned My Hand

Some of you know the whole story, some of you parts of it, and still others only know that it happened. Let me relay the events of that night. I had just come up from my last break of the evening, and hopped on my train, The Walt, for its last load of the evening. Here is the perp:

 

So as a part of closing procedures, you have to shut down with a certain amount of water in the boiler for the next morning's crew. When I got on the train, the breaker informed me that he had already started the injectors and all I had to do was check the level at the next station. As we stopped in Frontierland Station, the water level was good so all I had to do was close two valves. Now they are located to the front of me and I have to lean forward to be able to reach them. Did I mention the bucket under my seat?

 

 

This bucket is what we keep our gloves and lighters and clean towels in. You can see a towel in the pic above. Well as I stood up, my foot became entangled with this bucket a bit, and, in the process of reaching forward, I basically fell flat on my face. In an effort to stop my fall, my reaction was to grab what was readily available. In this case it was the injector pipe. The hot injector pipe. The one full of steam and with no safety protection over it. I held on for maybe half a second, but that was enough. I was burned and it was bad and I knew it.

 

At this point I started yelling for my partner to get out the burn gel ASAP. So she gets out the First Aid kit and starts ripping open packages and squeezing it into my hand. Yeah, that wasn't helping any (not to mention the fact that it was only antibiotic ointment because no one had re-filled the kit). I kicked the bucket at her and told her I need water from the tender, which she filled up from underneath. My hand goes in immediately and it starts cooling down but I can already feel the skin tightening. I'm not going make it. Time to call an Alpha (Disney-talk for an ambulance).

 

Now all I can do in the meantime is swirl my hand in this bucket, while uttering every bad word you can think of. Managers are starting to show up from everywhere because of the call over the radio. Someone comes running up with a wheelchair. I take one look at it and say "get rid of that thing!" The paramedics finally arrive, inspect it real quick and put this ice pack thing in my hand. I swear it sizzled, but it felt so damn good. So I head out with them for my special ride to the hospital. They ask me a bunch of questions, but one odd one was in the group: "when was your last Tetanus shot?" I had no idea.

 

So we finally get to the ER and the receptionist is taking all my information. We explain that it's a burn and here's the conversation that followed:

 

Nurse: Oh you're the second burn we've had tonight.

Me (in obvious pain): I think mine is worse.

Nurse: Yeah the other was a girl was out a Fort Wilderness around the campfire. One of the kids flung his burning marshmallow and it flew and stuck to her upper lip.

Me: .....

Me: She wins.

 

She then asked me a bunch of questions, including the Tetanus shot thing again. They finally moved me to a room and brought in this pan of ice water (Oh My God! Glory to Jesus, Yes!). I soaked my hand and someone gave me two pills for pain. Then another pill for something else and then asked me about Tetanus again. At this point I stopped and asked what the Hell does Tetanus have to do with anything!?! Apparently it's a skin thing that happens with cuts and...burns. Guest who gets a booster shot? Guess who doesn't do needles very well? This guy. I was almost like:

 

 

So now the doctor come in and checks me out. Puts the burn cream on and bandages me up. Gives me a pain prescription but says I should be fine and sends me on my way. At this point my phone is on 4% battery life. Then I realize I don't have anyone I could call anyway. Talk about adding insult to injury. I ask how I'm supposed to get back and the receptionist is stunned like "usually a manager comes out and drives you back". Well welcome to Main Street, Mrs. nurse lady. It costs me a $25 cab ride from Celebration Hospital back to the roundhouse. I walk from there back to my truck to drive home. Do you know how hard it is to get keys out of your left pocket with your right hand? It's not easy. And yes, my truck is a stick. It wasn't a short drive either.

 

I only missed three days and never needed the pain medicine. It has healed just fine. In, case you were wondering what it looked like, here you go. This was after two days of healing.

 

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