This story made local news on Monday:
Boy suffers burns in blowtorch game
May 12, 2008
MANITOWOC — A 14-year-old boy was hospitalized Saturday with burns on more than a quarter of his body after a blowtorch game with another teenage boy, authorities said.
The injured boy, who was not named, was sent to Columbia St. Mary's Hospital in Milwaukee, said Capt. Mark Rusboldt of the Manitowoc Fire Department.
Rusboldt said firefighters found the boy in the garage of a residence with burns to his back, head, face, both arms and hands.
The injured boy and another teen apparently used spray cans as blowtorches and would use them on each other, Rusboldt said. The other teen was not injured.
When I heard that story on the radio Monday morning I got to thinking about how this kid is going to live the rest of his life. Everybody does stupid things; some you regret, some you can shrug off as completely unimportant. This is the opposite of unimportant.
This kid is going to have one hell of a stigma. People may not ask him what happened to him when he's 40, but word gets around. What would you think of someone you'd met who was horribly burned in his youth, but you only found out later that he was burned in the most stupid fashion imaginable: being burned purposefully in a game. You could hardly regard him as anything more than a mental deficient.
Yes, that's harsh; but I feel so sorry for this kid. In a single instant his life changes immeasurably for the worse.
There is a possibility that he'll be able to overcome it. There are plenty of stories about people that are maimed in some horrible way but who devote their lives to helping others.
You know, I'm not religious. I've got friends who have tried to get me to look after my soul for years. What gets me thinking about religion more is what happened to this kid. If he isn't particularly religious, where is a 14-year-old going to find the hope and strength to go on? What does a non-religious person do when life deals out a tragedy?
This is simply inexpressibly sad.