My Fiancé Caught on Fire

I tried to look on the bright side; they were going camping and white water rafting, so at least there would be no strippers and no one would have to drive home drunk. It was a wholesome activity with minimal opportunity for trouble.

Dan packed up his things and left early on a Saturday morning to go up to the Kings River Valley outside of Fresno. I didn’t hear from him all weekend and imagined he was having a great time.

Surprise!

On Sunday I came home to a most unpleasant surprise. I walked in the door, excited to see my fiancé after two days apart and found him lying on the couch in a blue hospital shirt. Both hands were wrapped so thickly in gauze it looked like he was wearing two white boxing gloves. His right foot was propped up on a stack of pillows, wrapped in a similar fashion. I almost laughed, thinking it must be some kind of terrible joke. Who comes back from a camping trip the weekend before their wedding in such a state? Three appendages wrapped in gauze seemed too outrageous to be true. A look at his face confirmed the worst. This was not a joke. “I’m sorry,” he said, looking sadder than I’d ever seen him.

He had been sleeping by the fire and woke up in the middle of the night to a smoldering log on his foot. In his drowsiness he reached for the log and threw it off, burning both hands in the process. His screams woke his sleeping friends who tried to phone an ambulance, but being in the woods, out of cell phone range, they were forced to load into the car at three am and head for the main road, hoping to get reception. Dan was in so much agony they had to pull over several times so he could plunge his scorched hands and foot into the river. Eventually they were able to get reception and call for an ambulance which met them on the road and rushed him to the emergency room.

At first I couldn't figure out if I was angry at him or felt sorry for him, but I quickly settled on sorry. It was an unfortunate accident, and he was in too much pain to validate any blame. It was an unlikely and unwelcome turn of events, but we were determined not to let it ruin our big day.

Luckily, his left ring finger had escaped unscathed.

Medical Advice

The next few days involved a series of doctor’s appointments where the diagnosis became worse and worse. Every time a doctor learned of our upcoming wedding their jaw dropped. Dan found himself on the receiving end of several scolding lectures; one concerned nurse advised him that he would have to start being more responsible now that he was getting married. He promised there would be no more catching on fire as a married man. We started to find humor in our situation and laugh at the craziness of it. I laughed especially hard at one female doctor’s reaction. “Your wedding is in five days?” She shook her head and fixed him with a reproachful gaze. “You dumbass! If I were your fiancé I’d kick your ass!”

Shark Patrol?

It didn’t help that ours was a do-it-yourself wedding and we were slightly behind schedule on several things. Dan was in charge of making the CD favors, but with his hands incapacitated this was impossible. I was nearly in tears trying to do it myself when we finally decided to enlist the help of friends and family members. We soon had an assembly line set up in our living room — those with nimble, unscorched hands were burning CDs, printing stickers and inserts, cutting the inserts, applying the stickers and putting the whole thing together. Dan’s brother was especially helpful, but I couldn’t help but chastise him. “You’re the best man! Why weren’t you looking after him?” I said, only half-kidding. “I was on shark patrol,” was his quick reply. “Mark was supposed to watching out for fires. He didn’t get attacked by shark, did he?”

The Show Must Go On!

Gloves instead of bandages.

For the wedding, Dan wore a white glove on his right hand, eliciting more than a few Michael Jackson jokes, and wrapped the lesser-burned left hand in flesh colored bandages. Our tuxedo renters were helpful in providing a right shoe that was 3 1/2 sizes larger than the left in order to accommodate the massive layers of gauze. So he looked a little strange, and it was odd to take his gloved and bandaged hands at the alter, but looking into his eyes, charred flesh was the last thing on my mind. He was so full of adrenaline for the ceremony that he barely limped as we returned down the aisle together to one of our favorite Elvis songs, “Burning Love”. Ironically, we had chosen that song as our recessional before the burning incident.

The Worst is Over-- Or is it?

“You’re a Murphy now, better get used to this kind of stuff,” said my new husband. Our caterer had ordered a wheelchair when she heard about his injuries, which sat idle at the edge of the grass since Dan preferred to limp rather than roll. So we decided to take it for a spin around the dance floor, just for fun. Let this be a lesson to others - wheelchairs are not supposed to be fun. Sitting on Dan’s lap, pumping my fist to the music as a friend pushed us around, we suddenly we came to an abrupt halt. “Don’t stand up!” my friend shouted as I… stood up. The train of my dress had gotten caught in one of the wheels. Several concerned onlookers gathered around to try to unravel the delicate fabric. Silk organza is not very durable. When they finally got it out, dirty and torn, my mother did her best to bustle up damaged portion.

Murphy's Law Addendum

Happily Ever After

I laughed. I was a Murphy alright. It was hard to believe that days earlier I had been nearly hysterical over CD favors, and yet there I was, torn train and gimp husband, laughing and having a great time. I learned that “Murphy’s Law” has a little known but very important addendum. Whatever can go wrong will go wrong, but there will always be silver lining. These days so many brides get caught up in the superficial aspects of implementing their dream weddings that they forget to focus on what's really important. Since many of our superficial aspects were so off-kilter, we were more compelled to put our attention on what actually mattered. My fiancé had caught on fire, but it could have been worse and he would eventually heal with very little scarring. My dress was torn, but I was married to the man I loved, surrounded by friends and family on a beautiful, sunny day. Despite the unexpected challenges it turned out to be an astoundingly wonderful wedding and the start of a very happy marriage. My husband, however, is permanently banned from taking our future children on any camping trips!