Troy MacKinlay, 19 years old, was hanging out at his grandmother’s home when a tealight instigated a horrendous fire that left MacKinlay’s almost completely burned, the Metro reports.
MacKinley was estimated to only have a five percent chance of surviving the fatal and extremely damaging burns. The incident happened almost four months ago, October 14, in Shildon, County Durham.
First responders were immediately called and arrived a few minutes later. They found MacKinlay and Tommie Vayro, his cousin, trying to escape and find the way out of the burning house.
The fire caused MacKinlay to lose all of his fingers from both hands. He also had to undergo multiple skin grafts to replace his burned skin and keep him alive.
Doctors of the Royal Victoria Infirmary are already calling it, “one of the worst cases” they had ever tackled. Although MacKinlay has a very minute chance in surviving, the road to recovery will take its course in a sluggish pace.
Abra Wood, MacKinlay’s 25-year-old sister, said, “Troy asked us to take a photo and upload it on to his Facebook account, he said to say ‘this is me, if you don’t like it then do one. This is the only picture we have taken of Troy in 15 weeks. I’m incredibly proud of him.”
The sister added, “After spending 14 weeks on the critical care unit Troy is awake and he can talk with the speaking vale on. He’s still a very, very poorly boy and he still has a very long way to go, but he is doing this. He’s just generally making a miracle recovery and we are so proud we really are.”
Philanthropist Katie Piper, who was a victim of a devastating burn due to the acid thrown at her face by an ex-partner, decided to give her support to MacKinlay and his family.
Wood said, “Katie Piper has been great and is always asking about Troy, but she also offers the family support as well. She rang me just before Christmas, just to check that we were okay.”
MacKinlay posted a photo of his new exterior as his default picture on Facebook. He wrote as the caption, “This is me if you don't like it then do one be gone. 15 weeks after house fire with 3rd 4th degree burns.”
Ever since posting it, MacKinlay had received a lot of support and words of encouragement from his friends.
Wood said, “We were told that there was a 5% chance of survival. Now there is a 99% chance that he is going to survive. I couldn’t believe it when he said, ‘take a picture of me and put it on Facebook.’
She continued, “He didn’t care what people thought – he just wanted to show people how much the doctors and nurses really had done. People were shocked at the picture, but he looks a million times better now than he did in the beginning.”
One of the nurses who took take of Mackinlay in Royal Victoria Infirmary wrote a comment in his new profile picture, “Well done, Troy, I looked after you on your last night before you moved to the burns unit. I said from the start this will all be a memory soon and you will get there.
“Keep up your hard work my darling.”
It may seem as if burns can easily be treated and unlikely to be fatal. But they expose your body to possible bacterial and virus infection due to the fact that the skin had peeled off.
Wood shared, “It has been a long time since I have seen him smile like that. This has really helped to build up his confidence again. He didn’t think anyone would like him after the accident and that no one would want to go and see him.”
She continued, “But the positive comments and the amount of shared the picture has is really helping to rebuild his confidence back up. His recovery really is a miracle.”
MacKinlay’s photo has received almost a lot of likes and one hundred shares. A JustGiving account has been created in order to support him. The campaign set the goal to 3000 UK pounds. So far, it has only received half of that amount, which means that there’s still work to do.
