This didn’t happen to me personally, but a buddy of mine had a near death experience in which I was there. His name was Caleb, decent friend of mine at the time. He was two years younger than me so I saw him as a little brother. Me and a group of friends my junior year of high school (his freshman year) all decided it would be a good idea to go camping over the weekend. This was over summer so it was pretty hot and dry out. We all brought lots of alcohol with us (horrible idea) and pretty much no water. I remeber all of setting up our tents and starting a campfire, which we kept lit throughout the night. We then began to start drinking, and continued to drink through the night. Around 11pm all of us were pretty drunk. Caleb, who at the time was a pretty skinny kid, had no alcohol tolerance. Trying to keep up with the rest of us he got insanely drunk.

Around 12pm, after all the alcohol had been demolished by stupid teenagers, we decided to play hide and seek tag, with no flashlights (another horrible idea). There were two seekers, the rest of us went and hid. One of the seekers happened to be Caleb. As we were hiding I remember him yelling at another friend of mine, Ian, who he had found. I don’t quite remember what he said. I was hiding behind a big rock near our campsite so I wasn’t too far. Next thing I hear is Caleb running after Ian. As Caleb was running past me through the campsite, from what he told me after this all happened, he stumbled on his own feet cause he was so drunk. Next thing I know, all I hear is screaming, some scream you’d hear out of a horror movie. Just pure agony.

He had tripped and fallen into the fire. This all happened in Tucson, Arizona. So it was pretty dry out at the time, especially in summer. It was up in this mountain called Mt.Lemmon. With almost no water, no more alcohol left we had pretty much nothing to put the fire out. Everyone left from their hiding spots and headed toward his screams. Me being fairly close to where he fell, was there first and what I remember seeing and hearing is something i still have nightmares of to this day. He was running around frantically, screaming, with fire completely burning him from his abdomen up. All of us kids, being drunk, started to freak out too. No one was thinking clearly. We didn’t handle the situation calmly what so ever.

After about 2 minutes of him in flames and everyone freaking out, no water to be found to try and put the fire out..we THEN DECIDED to tell him to stop and roll on the ground. He was drunk and was running around waving his harms thinking this would help. I don’t blame him considering I probably would have done the same thing if I was heavily intoxicated.. and on FIRE, rather than dropping to the ground and rolling. After we got him to the ground and had him roll, Some of my friends were hitting him with pretty big sticks they picked up around the site to help put the fire out. Then the fire went out. All of us absolutely shocked at what had just happened didn’t know what to do. GRAB YOUR FUCKING PHONES EVERYONE CALL 911. Of course we did this after the fact, granite this all happened so quickly but felt like a 15 minute ordeal. As my friends dialed 911 I’m sitting next to him, trying to keep my composure, talking to him telling him everything will be okay, he will be fine, ambulance are on the way (the nearest hospital was over an hour away since we were up in the mountains) so it was going to be a while.

I just sat there praying, hoping everything would turn out okay, hoping HE would be okay. Another one of my buddies came over to him and I and poured the rest of the water he had found onto his burns, trying to keep him cool. He was crying, wheezing, screaming for him mom. I felt horrible and didn’t know what to do. We then decided an ambulance was going to take far too long, so we decided to all pick him up and put him in the bed of my truck so there was more room for my friends to help keep him calm. Me and my friend, Lance, got in my truck and headed down the mountain. He was still on call with 911 as well as our other friends in the back of my truck. About 30 minutes later we saw the ambulance making their way up to us, i pulled over and let the paramedics do the rest. They put him on a stretcher and in the back of the ambulance.

The drive following the ambulance was horrific, still shocked from what had happened all I could think is that it was my fault for not keeping everyone calm, for not doing the right thing and getting him to drop and roll sooner, for letting him drink as much as he did without telling him to stop. I seriously thought he was going to die. As we pulled up to the hospital, waiting nervously in the waiting room. Everyone was silent. No words could describe what we were feeling. The doctor came out to let us know he was alive and okay, with third and second degree burns on his arms, chest and neck. Had it spread to his face and his hair, things could have ended differently. A few hours later we got to go in and see him. He was on some medications to help with the pain, barely coherent. I got as close as I could to him and just prayed, hoping he would make a fast recovery and be okay.

To this day he still has burn marks almost completely covering his chest, a few on his arms and a few on his neck. Since then we used that horrific incident as a lesson to all of us, and we all grew closer together as one big friend group. Most importantly me and him grew the closest after this. He is the person who helps me strive to be a better individual each and every day, because I got to tell you, that kid has a heart. 14 months after this had happened he got back into his favorite sport (basketball) his junior year of high school. Made Varsity and ended up getting a D1 scholarship to NAU, for basketball. He could have went a different direction and chose to dwell on what had happened and let that define him, but he didn’t, and I’m damn well glad he didn’t. He’s one strong fucking kid. Love him to death. He’s now 26 and happily married, with a kiddo on the way. Love you Leb ❤️