Patrick Hardison was a volunteer firefighter who spent his life helping others. He was a father who loved attending his children’s sporting events and a man who wanted nothing more than to be there for his family.
But in 2001, while responding to a house fire in Mississippi, Patrick’s life changed in a matter of moments.
He entered the burning home believing he could help rescue someone trapped inside. Instead, the structure collapsed around him.
The injuries he suffered were devastating.
Patrick sustained third-degree burns across his entire face and scalp, as well as severe burns to his head, neck, and upper torso. The fire destroyed his ears, lips, most of his nose and much of the tissue around his eyelids.
His firefighter’s mask had melted onto his face.
His hose had melted, too.
Yet somehow, Patrick survived.
For years afterward, he would face a different kind of battle — one that continued every time he stepped outside his home.
Children would sometimes run away when they saw him. Strangers stared. Others pointed or whispered.
Patrick tried to protect himself from the attention by wearing a baseball cap, sunglasses and specially designed prosthetic ears.
But underneath those things was a man struggling to regain a normal life.
The Accident That Changed Everything
Patrick was inside the burning house when the building collapsed on top of him.
“My mask was melting to my face,” he later recalled. “My hose was already melted.”
He somehow managed to escape through a window.
By then, his head and upper body were already on fire.
One of his friends and fellow first responders, Jimmy Neal, remembered the horrifying sight.
“For somebody who does what we do for a living, I’ve never seen anybody burned that bad that was still alive,” Neal recalled.
Patrick’s injuries were extensive.
His entire face and scalp had suffered third-degree burns. His ears were gone. His lips were destroyed. Most of his nose and eyelid tissue had been lost.
And when Patrick finally saw his reflection months later, he struggled to comprehend what had happened to him.
“I didn’t actually see myself until probably November. I got injured in September,” he explained.
Because so much of his face was covered with skin grafts, doctors had created a small opening in one of his eyelids so he could see.
Patrick looked into the mirror.
His reaction was immediate.
“This is it? I can’t do this,” he remembered thinking.
But there was no turning back.
A completely different life awaited him.
