Scroll down to the bottom to hear what Lt. Ross Vezin had to say about his experience at the camp.
By Joan Mcdonough
The Island Packet
WASHINGTON — Lt. Ross Vezin of Beaufort-Port Royal Fire Department just had one of the most “life-changing” weeks of his life.
But he wasn’t fighting fires.
He was hanging out with a bunch of kids.
Vezin just returned from a week-long camp for kids who have survived tragedies, live with burn scars and have wisdom beyond their years.
The International Burn Camp, an annual program put on by the International Association of Firefighters, hosts one firefighter and one burn victim aged 13 to 15 years old from regional burn survivor kids camps at the Washington, D.C., camp. This year, just over 100 campers and counselors from across the U.S. and Canada attended the Saturday-to-Saturday camp, Vezin said.
Some of the kids talked about their experiences, Vezin said.
One of those young voices - a little girl left scarred by a fire that claimed three members of her family - resonated with Vezin.
“If you count your blessings, there’s no time to complain,” she said.
“I’ll never forget that,” Vezin said while sitting in the training room at the fire department’s Station 2 on Ribaut Road on Monday afternoon. He said he learned more from the kids than they learned from him.
Vezin was chosen by the board of the Medical University of South Carolina Burned Children’s Fund to represent South Carolina this year at International Burn Camp, he said. He has been a counselor at Camp Can Do in Charleston, the South Carolina burn camp funded by the MUSC Burned Children’s Fund, since the beginning of his career as a firefighter just over eight years ago. He also currently serves on the planning board for the state program.
“I have a passion for working with kids,” he said. “It’s really inspiring to see them go through so much and still be so strong.” He returned home on Saturday and took Sunday off to let it all sink in, he said.
“On the hour-and-a-half plane ride home, that’s all I thought about ... . It keeps me going, it keeps me motivated,” he said.
Vezin recalled his first activity at his first year at Camp Can Do. He was fishing with a group of kids and one boy, whose hands had been burned off, was about to catch his first fish.
“He reeled in a fish with no hands. He was determined to catch that fish, and he did it,” Vezin said.
Residents can help kids attend the camps by dropping off aluminum cans in the big red trailers parked at both of the fire stations on Ribaut Road. There will also be a softball tournament on Oct. 15 in Burton Wells Park to raise money for the MUSC fund.
Copyright 2016 The Island Packet