Glenvar boys' burn scars heal slowly but surely

Photos by Rebecca Barnett | The Roanoke Times

Mason Anderson and his mom play with Legos while waiting for his brother Cole to finish a physical therapy session Tuesday. The two boys still have nightmares, Anita Anderson says, after being badly burned by a fire they built in their back yard in September.

Becky Smith, a physical therapist at Heartland Rehabilitation Services, massages Cole Anderson's ankle during his physical therapy session. Cole uses weights on his ankles to help build strength in his leg. Mason and Cole have to undergo physical therapy several times a week. But, says mom Anita Anderson, "we've got faith, and good friends, and we'll get through this."

Becky Smith, a physical therapist at Heartland Rehabilitation Services, massages Cole Anderson's ankle during his physical therapy session. Cole uses weights on his ankles to help build strength in his leg. Mason and Cole have to undergo physical therapy several times a week. But, says mom Anita Anderson, "we've got faith, and good friends, and we'll get through this."

Physical therapist Becky Smith (left) helps Anita Anderson attach a joint therapy device to Mason's leg. The 8-year-old is scheduled to get his cast off on Tuesday and will have to wear the device until he's able to hold his leg straight.

The burns were so deep and the pain so severe and relentless that Mason Anderson gave up.

He told his parents he couldn't go on, he didn't want to live anymore. He was 7 years old.

His brother Cole, 10 at the time, was barely better off. Both were burned right to their bones by a fire they built in their west Roanoke County backyard fire pit so they could make some s'mores last September. The boys put gasoline on the fire to get it going, and when they lit it, the gas vapors exploded.

Three months later, Mason and Cole are back home, back in school, and back among friends — but they remain scarred outside and in, said their mother, Anita Anderson.

Both suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, she said. "They still have nightmares, dream they're on fire again and are kind of reliving the thing."

Anderson, 38, said she expects their healing to be "a long, drawn-out thing." But, she added, "we've got faith, and good friends, and we'll get through this."

Through the tragedy of the fire, Anita and Keith Anderson have enjoyed the support of their friends, church and larger community, and that has carried them through.

The boys spent four weeks in the burn unit at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center right after the fire. Church members covered Anita Anderson's job delivering The Roanoke Times. Keith Anderson, 39, took vacation from his job as an electrician at Steel Dynamics to stay at the hospital, but he came home after a few weeks to be with the couple's youngest son, Dawson, 6.

Friends and others organized a series of fundraisers: a yard sale, a cornhole tournament, a motorcycle poker run, a concert, a baseball tournament, a bass fishing tournament, a gun raffle.

"People who we never thought about have stepped up to the mound," Anita Anderson said. Her family's gratitude is greater than they can describe, she said.

Among the most important things supporters did was let Cole and Mason know they were loved back home when they were enduring merciless pain in the hospital.

Both boys underwent several skin graft surgeries.

It was almost more than their parents could bear, Anita Anderson said, "them crying so much, and giving them morphine and they're still laying there screaming their heads off to please help them."

Even as they healed, the boys worried about how they would be received back in Glenvar. That's where all of that support came in. It let the boys know they wouldn't be judged by their friends and neighbors.

Once they returned, Anita Anderson's job didn't get much easier.

The boys were home-schooled at first, and then there were wound dressing changes, physical therapy three days a week, psychology appointments.

Cole is back on his own feet and playing basketball again.

Mason, however, has suffered serious contraction of the skin on his burned leg, which caused his leg to begin bending at the knee to a 90-degree angle. He spent the first two weeks of December back in the hospital going through a series of casts to stretch the skin and straighten his leg. He continues physical therapy.

The boys still worry about their scars, which are covered by long pants this time of year. But recently Cole cried thinking about when summer comes and he puts on a bathing suit and his scars are exposed.

Their parents keep them moving forward toward a more normal life. And some things about them haven't changed.

"They're not all about being back in school," Anita Anderson said. But they do enjoy when their friends come around to play.

While the worst of their physical pain is behind them, other challenges remain for the boys and their parents.

"Now it's just knowing how to help them live with what they've been through. ... Just try to teach them that God's going to pull us through this," Anderson said.

"You just adjust to it and you go on," she said. "It's your kids. What else can you do? You have to make it right for them."

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