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LANE DeGREGORYWhen hurricane winds sweep in, doctors know hospital burn units are likely to fill up.
TAMPA - From his hospital bed, he tells his tale. So others might learn. To spare someone else the pain.
"Like everyone else, I was getting ready for the hurricane," said Todd Jenkins, 41. "I knew better. But I was in a hurry. So I used gasoline to try to burn my brush. I almost died."
He's propped on three pillows, an IV dripping into his left arm, his right arm wrapped in gauze. He can't move his right leg. It's swathed in bandages from toe to hip. For six days, he has been in the burn unit of Tampa General Hospital, covered in oozing blisters, shaking with pain.
Storm victims don't just get crushed by falling trees or swept up in floods. Often, they burn.
"Every time I see a bad storm coming, I know we're going to fill up here," said Dr. C. Wayne Cruse. He oversees Tampa General's burn unit, which serves 20 Florida counties. "After Hurricane Charley, we had a big increase in burn cases. And I expect even more will be showing up in the next few days."
On Wednesday, all 13 beds in the burn unit were full. At least four of the patients were injured in hurricane-related accidents. Others probably had been hurt in the storms but were too badly injured to explain what happened.
And two children - one burned post-Charley, one after Frances - already had been treated and released.
A 15-year-old boy was struck by lightning while trying to patch a roof after Charley. And an 11-year-old girl was badly singed while her dad was trying to burn brush on Wednesday.
"All these people have come close to being burned beyond the ability to save them," said nurse Susan Rainey, who works in the unit. "We have to get the message out so other people don't make the same mistakes."
Jenkins and another man caught fire while trying to burn yard debris.
A woman who was defrosting chicken was badly burned when the power suddenly came back on, splashing hot poultry juices into her face.
An elderly woman almost died trying to curl her hair. The power had gone out, so she had moved into her RV, where everything runs on propane.
Her curling iron got too hot and somehow ignited the tank.
She's still in intensive care.
Another woman was injured in a house fire that may have been started by storm-related power problems.
A cable worker who suffered an electrical shock and a roofer burned by hot tar could also be storm casualties.
"There are two main problems we're seeing right now: flash flares from brush fires and electrical injuries," Cruse said. "By this weekend, when everyone's up fixing their roofs, we'll probably be getting a lot more tar burns too."
Hurricane Charley left dozens of downed trees and branches around Jenkins' Valrico home.
So when Frances started swirling toward Florida, Jenkins figured he'd better clean up his 1-acre yard.
He cut dead limbs, pruned pines, sawed down three trees.
He loaded everything into a pile out back - a stack of debris 4 feet tall and 10 feet in diameter.
"I didn't want any of those branches to blow away, become projectiles during the next storm," Jenkins said. So he decided to burn the brush. Only it was too wet, from all the rain.
He poured gasoline around the perimeter of the huge pile, leaving a trail for about 15 feet so he could stand back when he lit it. He used a long fireplace lighter.
"I heard the whoosh. Then I felt the side of my face burning. I leaped back like a frog and started rolling in the grass," Jenkins said. "The only place I didn't get burned was where my shorts and T-shirt were. Even my nose hairs got singed."
The debris, however, didn't burn.
That pile of limbs and leaves is still in Jenkins' yard, covered in water.
While he was in the hospital, the Alafia River was flooding his house.
His fiancee had to ride an air mattress across the moat to get in the front door.
"One of the hardest things these patients have to endure is feeling helpless," said Rainey, the nurse. "They were all stuck here, hurting, while their families were having to deal with the hurricanes. For some, the worry and guilt overrode the pain."
In the room next to Jenkins, another man has almost identical burns - and a story to match.
Dennis Hall, 49, was clearing his Brooksville property Friday morning and built an even bigger pile of brush.
When the wet leaves smoked instead of burning, he doused the debris with gas.
"A puff of wind blew the fumes back at me. The blast knocked me so hard I fell on my back," Hall said. He had to be airlifted to Tampa General, where nurses debrided his blistered body.
He'll have to keep coming back for followup therapy for at least a year.
"Next time, I'll have that stuff hauled away," Hall said. "It's just not worth it."