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A new start / Nearly fatal fire helps Roy teen change his life -- and outlook
By SAM COOPERROY -- Jordan Tracy said his biggest concern after a gasoline fire melted the clothing and skin off 60 percent of his body was indecency.
The 16-year-old returned to Roy High School earlier this month, a full year after a flash fire charred the skin off his arms and legs, left him in a coma for two weeks and nearly cost him his life.
Now his family wants to thank friends and the community for helping them through the rough times.
Jordan is the first to admit he made a stupid mistake last November.
"Me and my friends came home from school during lunch and started doing some stupid stuff ... smoking weed ... and I knocked over a gas tank," he said.
"My friends lit the gas that was on the ground, and it trailed up and caught the tank on fire, and I'm trying to put it out, then it exploded and gas sprayed all over me."
Jordan immediately dropped to the ground and began rolling around in an attempt to extinguish the flames, "but that doesn't work with gasoline, I figured out," he said.
A friend called 911 while another helped pull off his burning clothing. Suffering from shock, the teen couldn't comprehend how seriously he was hurt.
"I was more worried about indecent exposure, so I ran upstairs and got dressed," Jordan said.
"They (rescue workers) couldn't understand the clothing he had on, why it wasn't burnt," said his mother, Sheryl Tracy.
"It's because he ran upstairs and threw shorts on before he went out the front door."
Jordan said he wasn't sure what had happened until he was in his front yard. A neighbor wrapped him in a blanket and asked him if he was OK.
"I was like, 'Why wouldn't I be OK?' I just didn't realize what had happened to me ... with my skin falling off my arms," he said.
Jordan was flown to the University of Utah burn unit, where he stayed for four months, enduring dozens of skin grafts, surgeries and medical procedures while doctors pumped a total of 28 pints of blood back into his damaged body.
At the hospital, doctors discovered Jordan had also somehow severed his pancreas during the accident and were forced to remove his spleen.
The situation only got worse last spring.
Just five days after Jordan was released from the hospital, his small intestine ruptured, forcing him to undergo another five weeks of hospital care.
Jordan still has open sores on his chest and back from the accident.
He said his sister, Crystal, has been instrumental in seeing him through the daily rigor of cleaning wounds and changing bandages.
"(At first) it was really hard to try to separate yourself from all the pain," she said. "Then ... I had just gotten immune to it, then you just got to do what you got to do.
"It's still hard. Some days are better than others."
The two have shed lots of tears together, Sheryl Tracy said.
"She's a godsend -- she's our angel," Dean Tracy said of his daughter.
Life is slowly starting to fall back into place for the family. They were able to take a short trip to Bear Lake earlier this fall, and Jordan was able to gingerly ride his treasured 700cc four-wheeler.
They credit the support of friends and community members for seeing them through the last year.
"You know, tragedies happen, but you don't go through them by yourself. Everyone feels the pain and the sorrow with you, even if they don't know you," Sheryl Tracy said.
The family thanks Roy High School and Sand Ridge Junior High for all the cards of support while Jordan was hospitalized.
They also wanted to thank Boyd and Carlene Christensen and Monty Vorwaller for organizing a fundraiser, as well as all the businesses and individuals that donated gifts cards, food, toys and other items.
"We just can't thank people enough. There are just no words you can say to thank them for the support, for the loving and the caring and the prayers," Dean Tracy said.
Though the grafts have left his arms and legs puckered and discolored, the scarring left by the burns should be minimal once everything is healed, Jordan said.
Looking down at the patchwork of skin, he said he looks a little deeper at other people now.
Jordan said he made a friend in the burn trauma unit -- a boy who had already spent about 200 days there.
"His face is now deformed and stuff, but I don't look at his face. I look at him."
Jordan said the experience was also a nudge back in the right direction, which can sometimes be hard for teenagers to find.
"This helped me realize there's no point in doing anything stupid," he said. "There's much more to life than just getting high."
From 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, the family will hold an open house for friends and neighbors to observe the one-year anniversary of Jordan's accident.
"We're calling it our burn-aversary," Sheryl Tracy said.
For more information about the event, call the family at 731-7506.
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how about you all just shut the #*&! up
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