I Was Severely Burned In A Fire At 14 | Then The Pain Meds Led Me To Fentanyl

Rise Above with Kevin Lanning

William Ellis recounts the harrowing details of a childhood fire that left him with severe second and third-degree burns, an event that inadver

Key takeaways

A 14-year-old fire incident in Georgia led to extensive skin grafts and long-term physical trauma.
Prescribed narcotics for burn recovery served as the gateway to a multi-decade addiction to opioids.
The guest engaged in 'doctor shopping' across Georgia, Alabama, Florida, and South Carolina to obtain controlled substances.
Addiction was a systemic family issue, affecting his siblings Brittany and Cody as well as his parents.
A near-death experience involving 277 volts of electricity served as a profound moment of reflection during his recovery journey.

Main topics

Childhood burn trauma
Opioid epidemic and prescription abuse
Family addiction dynamics

Notable quotes

If somebody judges you by the scars on you, it's like that just tells you how shallow of an individual they are.

Conclusion

A raw and inspiring look at how profound trauma can lead to addiction,

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) From my waist up, I was, you know, like my chest and my stomach and all is second degree. I had a cadaver and pigskin stapled to me. This, I had a skin, my own skin removed from my left thigh, my whole entire left thigh. Speaker 2 (0:23) William, welcome. Thanks, Kevin. I appreciate you coming on. So I've had your sister, Brittany, on. I've had your brother, Cody, on. And now you and you all are sober. And the common denominator amongst all of them, there are many common denominators, but... The talk about what had happened to you when you were younger. Oh, yeah. You experienced a very traumatic event. Were you about 13 years old? Speaker 1 (0:53) I was 14. Speaker 2 (0:54) 14 years old. You were burned. Yeah. In a fire. Yeah. Speaker 1 (1:01) October the 27th of 1999, I was a freshman in high school, just started. Speaker 1 (1:11) You know, we grew up in a very small town in Georgia, so there's a lot of woods and stuff. Anyway, we had a bonfire the night before, and my dad took the gas away from me three times that day. And the gas jug nozzle, this was the old school gas jugs. They didn't have all that safety stuff they have on now. And the nozzle was cut all the way down. And it was a smoldering fire. And I took the jug. And I thought the coals was not hot. Well, obviously they were because the fire went woof. And it swinged my eyebrows and my hair. And I dropped it. And because of the nozzle being cut down like it was, it splashed on me. And, you know, back in school, they used to tell us stop, drop, and roll, right? Well, the gas splashed on me. And instantly I thought, okay, stop, drop and roll. So I stopped, dropped and rolled. And as I'm rolling, I feel my shirt melting to my back. Speaker 1 (2:29) So, and, you know, we grew up in the country, so there was either I could run to the pond or I run to the house. The house was closer, and the way the house sat was, is where the toilet was, there was a window. And, you know, the back of the toilet sat up against the window. So I jumped up to my feet. and I started running. And my dad, he said two things went through his mind. He said either I was on fire or the fire had got out of control. So in his mind, you know, you keep a cover on the foot of the bed just in case it gets cool. He grabbed the cover, and as I'm coming up the back doorsteps, my dad's coming out of his master bedroom, and... The way it sat was as you come out of the master bedroom, the kitchen's right there and the back door is right there in the kitchen. So my dad... You know, like you've seen Quentin Tarantino movies, right? Dude inflamed from his waist up and all that. He said it was something like out of a movie. So my dad bulldogs me and puts me out, and Cody comes through the front door. Speaker 2 (3:44) Your brother. Speaker 1 (3:45) My brother. And, you know, I stand up, and my skin is like dripping like hot wax. You know, like you turn a candle to the side, and it's dripping. Yeah. So he seen that. And at first I didn't feel the pain, right? Because I guess I was in shock. So I go to my mom and dad's bedroom and I'm sitting on the foot of the bed. And my mom and dad always slept with a fan. So all I could say was, I'm hot, I'm hot. So I turned the fan on, I'm sitting on the foot of the bed. And mind you, this is a little town of maybe, I don't know. 10,000 people at max. Like, we're a very small town. And I'm sitting on the bed, and the paramedics show up, and they're like, oh, wow. You know, because they're not used to that kind of stuff, you know? And I stand up. They was like, all right, you got to go. I was like, I'm going to get a shirt, right? And I stand up, and these assholes run the gurney right up in the back of my legs. And, you know, I fall onto the gurney. They take me to the back of the ambulance. And they throw this sheet, they rip open this pack and they throw this sheet on me. And they take this, like, it's like a milky water, whatever, like, to kill the chemicals, you know, the gas. And they throw it on me and you would think this ice cold water would feel good. It was like throwing hot grease on you. Like, it was bad. And I get sent to the emergency room in our little town. We didn't even have an emergency room at the time. It was part of the hospital. So I'm in the emergency room, and I'm laying on this table, and I remember seeing my mom, my aunts, you know, my whole family. Everybody's crying, and all I can say is, I'm okay. It's going to be okay. It's going to be okay. Speaker 1 (5:50) and they get me on the helicopter. Never seen a helicopter really in my life except in the sky, you know? And they put me on the helicopter, and we're flying, and around this time, it's fall, so all the leaves are turning colors, and it's pretty because I told the lady, and she was like, all right, they tried to put me under as soon as we started to leave, and I was like, no, no, no, I want to see the trees, you know? It's that easy. Yeah, so she let me, and we made it all the way to the river. Speaker 2 (6:23) One thing I've learned in my own recovery is that you can't do this alone, and you don't have to. I know that firsthand. I went through inpatient treatment at Karen Treatment Centers, and it changed the course of my life. That's why I am proud to announce that I have partnered with Karen. For nearly 70 years, they've helped people and families not just break free from addiction. but actually heal and transform their lives. They're in network with all major insurance providers and same day admission is available. So if you or someone you love is struggling, don't wait. Call Karen at 855-352-0103. That's 855-352-0103. Help starts with taking that first step. Speaker 1 (7:11) And she's like, all right, now it's time to go. We're going to put you under. And they knocked me out. And I wake up a week or so later. I'm wrapped up. And I remember my face. My dad and uncle were there. I didn't care about my face. I didn't care about my body. I started checking my private area. I wanted to make sure everything was good down there, you know. My uncle and my dad were like, it's all right, boy, it's still there. Speaker 2 (7:45) Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I Speaker 1 (7:47) didn't care if I looked like Scarface, you know what I mean? I just wanted to make sure everything there was good. Speaker 1 (7:53) And, you know, I was in there for, I don't know, four to six weeks maybe, first time. And I had a doctor. They named the hospital after him. He's dead and gone now, Dr. Odell Seal. He was a brilliant man. He was just a brilliant man. And I couldn't. And I've always been one, I don't like sitting around, you know what I mean? So I would sometimes drag my little machine around and walk around the nurses' islands and stuff. And I noticed there was this back room, and I went, and me and him started talking. He was a cool individual. He had a daughter who was an astronaut and a smart man. And, you know, he told me, he's like, look, you got to stay in the bed, man. Like, if you sweat, you're going to have to go through skin grafts again. So I stayed in the bed, and I remember they were giving me pills after pills, and I remember there was this little machine that had a little black button on it. And I hit it, and it's like, oh, I like this. You know, I'm like, I like this. I called it my little magic black button, and it turned out to be morphine pump, you know. And, you know, I went home. My mom worked for a very big car dealership guy named Woody Folson. He gave her a big, big old cargo van. You remember the cargo vans back in the day that had the VHS players and the TV? And I'll never forget it. So we stopped at a Walgreens or Rite Air, some pharmacy, right? And my dad went in to get the prescriptions. Speaker 1 (9:53) And he come out of the pharmacy and he was toting two sacks, grinning like a jackass eating briars, you know, like full of narcotics. Speaker 1 (10:08) He gave me these red pills, red mepregant pills, and I was feeling great. And, you know, me being a 14-year-old kid, I'm seeing my brother, sister, my cousins, everybody outside playing. Well, I snuck out of the house, went playing, sweated, and I had to go back. to the burn center to get more skin grafts because up under my left armpit is so deep. Went through them skin grafts again. Finally listened to the doctors. You know, I got held back almost a year and a half in school, you know, and it started my journey of opioids and, you know, drug use and all that. And, you know, that was, I thought it was normal. And then, you know, I was going through school and. Speaker 1 (11:06) I was the cool guy. I was the guy who sold everybody Neurontin and Galvapentin, and all my classmates were buying them. All the Speaker 2 (11:17) meds you were getting. Speaker 1 (11:18) Oh, yeah. I wasn't giving them the good stuff. I was keeping the good stuff for me, you know what I mean? But they would buy the 800-milligram Neurontin and the 800-milligram Galvapentin. I was selling them for a buck apiece, and they were buying them like hotcakes. And, you know, and I love smoking weed. So I would do trade, you know, like with weed and stuff. And, you know, high school was kind of a blur. You know, I think some of the teachers just passed me to pass me to get me get me out of there. And the only class that I did, two subjects that I did really good in was history and shop class. I love that. You know, I learned how to weld. And, you know, my dad being my hands on kind of guy, you know, he knew how to build houses and cabinets and all that. You know, like I always idolized my dad, you know, because he could fix anything. He really could. And, you know, we just lived that lifestyle, you know, like Cody and Brittany said, we lived this lifestyle of like, you know, like the good fellas or whatever, right? And it came on the scene that me and my mom. Speaker 1 (12:42) This is when the pill epidemic in the early 2000s where you can go in for ingrown toenail and they write you roxies or oxies, right? Well, with me being all burnt up and everything else, I'd go in there and tell them I had pain and they'd write me out 40 milligram oxycontin, 120 of them. Bam, like that, you know, without even a blinking of an eye and I'm 15 years old. Speaker 2 (13:08) ultimately what did you suffer from a burn perspective from that year i could see your your left arm was burned is like your chest burned yeah like Speaker 1 (13:18) from my waist up i was you know like my chest and my stomach and all in second degree i had a cadaver and pigskin stapled to me uh this I had skin, my own skin removed from my left thigh, my whole entire left thigh. And then I had a patch probably eight inches long by four inches wide. That was removed. That skin graft was removed a little bit deeper because of how deep it was up under my left armpit. And, you know, the skin grafts, you know, the burn was painful, but the skin grafts were more painful than anything. What was the most painful part is when I would go to Augusta and they would have to remove the staples because there wasn't like dissolvable staples. They were actual real metal staples. Like they would have to, you know, basically sedate me and snatch these staples out. Like I had a staple that was lodged in my armpit and they literally had to take a pair of vice grips and snatch it out. Three years, three, four years after that, I was with my grandma and I kept filling up under my arm and I got my grandma, look, there's still a staple there. She had to take a pair of vice grips and rip it out and it took out a hunk of meat. I mean, so yeah, I mean, so I dealt with that. And, you know, like I also dealt with the thing of a depression. I fell into a bad depression. Speaker 1 (14:55) And my Uncle JC, God rest his soul, he got diagnosed with cancer. And I was going through this bad depression, and he told me something that I live my life by, even