MUSKEGON, Mich. — Every year, millions in the U.S. receive tissue grafts, according to Gift of Life Michigan. One of these people, Jennifer Bennett of Muskegon, survived a life-changing fire pit accident in the fall of 2022. Bennett's life was since saved by tissue donors after roughly 35% of her body was burned, both third and fourth degree burns. As Bennett reflects on the day of her accident, she says she didn't know if she would be here to tell her story.
“All of a sudden, it exploded," Bennett said. "And I just remember seeing the fireball coming at me.”
In a moment, Bennett's life flashed before her eyes. “I was terrified, just terrified," Bennett said. "I really didn't know if I would live.”
As Bennett stood beside a backyard fire pit, her father-in-law poured gasoline onto the fire. The rest was a blur.
“About my ankles up were my burns… all the way up to my thighs, and then my hand. This hand was really burnt quite badly. My palms were gone. This arm was burnt up here, and I had flash burn to my face," Bennett said.
Bennett tells me a month before the accident, her Alopecia prompted her to shave her head and start wearing wigs. The wig she ripped off her head that night saved her life.
“It saved me from having a lot of burns on my face, and it saved me from, honestly... it saved me from dying, ultimately,” Bennett said.
Bennett had three surgeries at Corewell Health in Grand Rapids, which all proved successful. Dorrie Dils, President of Gift of Life Michigan, explains that the rejection rate of skin grafts is very low. "What it does is it actually acts as a biological dressing, and so the wounds are covered with this skin, and eventually the patient's own cells will create skin cells underneath it, and then when this dressing eventually sloughs off, there will be new skin that has grown up underneath it,” Dils said.
Following her skin grafts, Bennett says she now carries around quite a few people with her, all with different ethnicities. “The hair that would grow out of me...it wasn't my hair at first," Bennett said. "It was the other people's hair.”
Bennett was given new skin, and a new life, thanks to her tissue donors.
“It’s just so beautiful, just a beautiful thing that somebody could give me my life... and that I get to be with my kids," Bennett said. "It's a beautiful thing, and I'm just so thankful.”
Bennett, in her words, is now living her best life at home with her husband and three kids, and she says she’s constantly reminded of the people she carries around with her because of their donation.
For more information on Gift of Life Michigan, and how to become a donor, click here.
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