Fire survivor gives thanks to caretakers
09:05 AM EDT on Thursday, September 25, 2003
BY ELIZABETH GUDRAIS
Journal Staff Writer
NORTH SMITHFIELD -- The room was filled with nurses and patients,
but Roberta O'Melia was both.
She knew what it was like to have a person's health, a person's life,
rely on her care.
And she had learned how it felt to be the person whose life depended on
that care.
The lesson began on Feb. 20, the night the Pawtucket resident went to
hear Great White play at The Station nightclub.
It continued in the painful months afterward, as she underwent three
surgeries on her burned hands and back, and day after day of physical
therapy. She spent two months at the Rehabilitation Hospital of Rhode
Island. The learning, and the recovery, are still not over. There's at
least one more surgery to come, and O'Melia has yet to return to her job
as a licensed practical nurse.
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Roberta O'Melia, of Pawtucket, who survived the Station nightclub fire, hugs one of her physical therapists, Gul Tokcan, of Providence, during a reunion celebration of inpatients and caregivers at the Rehabilitation Hospital of Rhode Island.
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"It just takes a lot longer than people imagine," O'Melia said
yesterday, speaking at a reunion of those who'd been inpatients at the
hospital in the last year and the physical therapists who helped them
during their stay.
O'Melia, a petite 43-year-old with an infectious smile, entered the room
clutching a bottle of Schweppes ginger ale in hands twisted with burn
scars.
"She looks beautiful!" a physical therapist muttered.
O'Melia took two M&M cookies from the buffet and put them on a plate.
Gripping a soda bottle, shaking a hand -- each action was a small
victory. Six months ago, O'Melia couldn't move her hands. She couldn't
feed herself, or dress herself, or put a coat on.
She stopped to talk to Adrian Krasinskas, another Station fire survivor
who recuperated at the hospital last spring.
"How's your girlfriend?" she asked him. "Your dog?"
As they talked, a physical therapist ran up, her face a picture of glee.
"Adrian! How are you? You look great!"
"My legs are getting stronger," Krasinskas, whose upper legs were
severely burned, boasted with a smile. "I'm up to about 190 on the leg
presses. I'm getting there."
Last week, Krasinskas, who lives in Oxford, Mass., returned to his job
as an insurance-claims adjuster.
O'Melia said she, too, looks forward to returning to work.
"You just want to get your life back," she said.
The rehabilitation hospital's entire staff spent a day at Massachusetts
General Hospital in March, to learn about providing care for the fire
victims and easing their transition back into the world. In all, the
hospital treated six Station fire survivors.
O'Melia and Krasinskas mingled yesterday with dozens of other patients
who'd been there for other reasons.
"God bless you, Roberta!" said Janet Ariosta, who'd spent time at the
hospital after knee replacement surgery. "The Lord still has a job for
you on this earth."
O'Melia said she came yesterday not to talk about her own tribulations,
but to thank the nurses and physical therapists who guided her through
them.
"There were so many days I didn't want to get out of bed," she said. "I
couldn't have done it without them."
