BC Camp helped a teenager who suffered burns to 55% of her body after a boating accident

Whitney Burnand first attended BC Burn Camp at the age of 13 – about eight years after she was in a “total freak accident” that left her with burns on more than half of her body.

When Burnand first attended the weeklong camp, she said she didn’t know what she missed.

“I think it would have really helped, especially before my teenage years, to give me a different level of confidence and just make me more proud of being a survivor as opposed to that kind of ‘why me’ mentality,” he said Vancouver residents.

Burnand is one of hundreds of children who have attended Brandcamp since its inception in 1994. It allows fire survivors to be themselves and connect with other children and camp counselors in a safe and inclusive environment.

It is supported by the BC Professional Fire Fighters Burn Fund, which launched the 2024 Hometown Heroes Lottery in collaboration with the VGH & UBC Hospital Foundation.

Support services for lottery ticket sales at VGH and UBC Hospitals, GF Strong Rehab Center and Vancouver Community Health Services, as well as a burn fund such as the Home Away program, mental health support services and the annual Burn Camp for young survivors .

Burnand, who attended the camp for six years, said it was a place where you were accepted and not different, and everyone else had scars like you so you didn’t have to worry about them.

In 1993, when Burnand, who grew up in Nanaimo, was five years old, she and her father, stepmother, younger brother and some friends took a boat trip to the Gulf Islands. The group stopped at Ladysmith Harbor to pick up another person.

As they prepared to leave port, one of their friends tried to start the boat and it “exploded out of nowhere,” she said.

“Some people were very seriously injured, others were not injured at all, which is nothing short of a miracle.”

However, Burnand was standing directly over the engine compartment when the boat exploded. A friend of her stepmother’s noticed that someone – Burnand – was missing and jumped back onto the flooded boat to save her.

Burnand and her brother were taken to Nanaimo General Hospital and flown to BC Children’s Hospital. While Burnand had burns on 55 percent of her body, her brother was not as badly burned.

She said her mother, who drove to Nanaimo Hospital, was told to say goodbye to Burnand in case she didn’t make it.

“They put me in a medically induced coma because I was so badly injured, and they had to stabilize me and do a lot of surgeries and skin grafts. My mother said my skin was burned so badly it looked like shredded hamburger meat.”

Burnand spent two months recovering in the Lower Mainland, including a month at Children’s Hospital and another at Vancouver General Hospital, before returning to Nanaimo Hospital for rehabilitation.

“I had to learn to walk again. I didn’t speak for a while because my lungs were pretty damaged from the smoke and flames, and then I was also intubated in a coma for a month. So it was all very sensitive.”

Burnand said her mother was made aware of the fire camp after the accident.

“She kept asking me if I wanted to come with her, and I didn’t want to think about going to a camp for several nights and several days away from my family.”

Her friends and family became her security blanket, and going anywhere without them “felt really scary and daunting to me at the time.”

Then one year, when she was 13, she knew another girl who wanted to go and decided to finally attend.

“I wish I had left sooner. I mean, no regrets or anything, but I didn’t know what I was missing.”

Burnand attended the camp for several years and eventually volunteered as a camp counselor.

Hometown Heroes lottery tickets are on sale now. Prices range from a three-pack for $75, a seven-pack for $129, a 21-pack for $300, and a 40-pack for $500.

There are 50 early bird prizes worth more than $170,000. An early bird winner can choose between a 2024 Tesla Model Y and a 2024 Kia ​​Niro Electric Vehicle (EV) Wave or 10 years of vacation plus $20,000 in spending money or $125,000 in cash.

Tickets are available until midnight on July 11th or until they sell out.

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