Digital Extra: The Station Fire

Three years ago, Gina Gauvin was caught under a pile of bodies at the door of the Station nightclub.

10:58 AM EST on Sunday, February 19, 2006

BY FELICE J. FREYER
Journal Medical Writer

Gina Gauvin opens her kitchen door to welcome a visitor. She's all smiles and chatter. Fluffy rust-red hair hugs her face, thick, wavy and shoulder-length, her bangs almost obscuring her eyes.

Related

Three years later: Journal photographer Mary Murphy narrates a look at the life now of Station fire survivor Gina Gauvin, in words and photos

Extra: Look back at the disastrous nightclub fire, and its continuing impact on its victims, community and the state

Yes, she says, it's her own hair, the hair that once flowed to her hips, her trademark red mane that burned away in the Feb. 20, 2003, fire at The Station nightclub. But there are still these bald areas. She bends and flips the hair over her head, brushing it aside with a stubby hand to show the smooth scarred skin in the back.

And yes, she says, her face does look better. The right side, once bumpy and itchy, is smoother and more flexible.

"They took a big piece of skin from my shoulder and put it on here," she explains, gesturing to her cheek. "Then they took some from my belly and put it on my shoulder."

In the three years since Gauvin was pulled from a pile of bodies at the entrance to the burning nightclub, she has had 23 surgeries. Right now, she's thinking that's about enough.

Throughout her treatment, Gauvin, who was the subject of a four-part series in The Journal in October 2003, had amazed her caregivers with her high spirits and optimism. They kept waiting for the rage and depression you would expect from someone so badly injured. Instead they got wisecracks.

TODAY, GAUVIN, 45, seems little changed. "I'm pretty upbeat every day," she says. "You've got kids. You've got to be there for them."

She admits that scarcely a day goes by when she doesn't think of "that horrifying night," when fireworks ignited the West Warwick nightclub and 96 people perished within minutes. She remembers it all clearly -- groping through the smoky blackness, passing out in the doorway, awakening in the hard spray of a firefighter's hose, flying by helicopter to the UMass Memorial Medical Center, in Worcester. With burns over nearly 70 percent of her body, Gauvin was one of the 12 survivors most seriously hurt in the fire; four died in the hospital. (In all, more than 200 were injured and 115 of those required hospitalization.)

But as tomorrow, the third anniversary of the disaster, approaches, Gauvin doesn't dwell on her scars or the loss of her hands. Instead, she talks about all the people who died. She befriended a woman who lost her only son in the fire and now has no one. Gauvin is grateful for what she has: "I have my independence. I'm pretty much on my two feet. I got the kids. I didn't lose any of them."

IN THE SMALL ranch house that Gauvin rents in Johnston, there are four bedrooms, for Gauvin and her three children, and narrow room that she calls her parlor. She walks into her parlor and sits down on the couch, her favorite spot to relax.

Leaning forward, Gauvin demonstrates what surgery has accomplished on her right hand, where her burned fingers had to be amputated down to the first joint. Pointing with the stump of her left arm, she shows where surgeons gouged a space between her thumb and forefinger, and between two other fingers, removing scar tissue that had fused them together. Now she can hold a pencil or a baking pan.

She still takes pain medication every day. Without it, she feels sharp pricking sensations in her absent fingers -- the "phantom limb" pain that is common among amputees. Her lungs were scarred by the toxic smoke, and she is often short of breath.

Gauvin once had a prosthesis for her left arm, which ends a few inches below her bent elbow. The device draped over her shoulders, and she needed to squeeze her shoulder muscles to open and close the hook-shaped pincers. But the straps chafed her scarred back, and she abandoned it. She also abandoned the physical therapy to straighten her left arm, which got bent at a 90-degree angle after surgery.

After three months, she says, "Finally it just got to the point where they were putting me in so much pain, I said, forget it. There's no sense in me going through this pain."

Gauvin is also starting to say "no" to more surgery. Last year, in an attempt to fix her bald spots by stretching the good skin, three water-filled bags were placed under her scalp.

As Gauvin describes it, the procedure was a disaster: the pain was excruciating, her eyes were black and blue, blood oozed from her ear, skin on top of the bag died, one of the bags leaked, and she developed a massive infection that required several days in the hospital. The bald spots remain.

"All this for vanity!" she says. "I learned after that that you can't trust a doctor when they say, 'Oh, no, it's not going to hurt.' That took up about six months. That's what I did last year. . . . I really don't want any more surgeries after that."

The doctors also talked about separating another finger. "I'm saying to myself, 'What do I need that for?' . . . It's never going to look totally perfect. It's never going to look good."

Besides, Gauvin says she's content with what she can do with her right hand, even though she had been left-handed. "I can do stuff but I just can't do all of it," she says.

"I can't pick my nose," she cracks.

And getting a cereal box out of the upper cabinet involves pushing it to the edge, and letting it fall gently into the crook of her left arm. She can put a pan of chicken nuggets in the oven, but she can't empty a pot of spaghetti into a colander. A home-care agency sends workers who help her with household chores and cooking.

BUT GAUVIN can write, draw, carry bowls and plates, and take care of her pet lizards, a lifelong passion.

"Last summer I went to Florida with a bunch of friends," Gauvin says, "for a reptile breeders expo in Daytona. . . . My friend gave me an ornate euromastyx." Her friend said the lizard reminded him of Gauvin: it's missing one of its feet and half its tail.

Gauvin picks up another lizard, a bearded dragon. "This is one of my babies," she says. "While I was in the hospital, one of my females laid eggs." Her friend who was caring for the lizards returned one of the "babies" to her, where it now shares a cage with a male. Gauvin is hoping for eggs.

Gauvin's older daughter, Heather, arrives home and flops on the couch. Heather was her mother's caregiver when she returned home in July 2003. At the time Gina worried that her needs would interfere with Heather's future. She wanted Heather to have a career.

But now it's clear that something else has intervened. Heather, 21, is pregnant, expecting a boy next month. Recently separated from the baby's father, on leave from her job as a housecleaner for a home-care agency, Heather plans to live with her mother for a couple of months, but hopes eventually to get her own apartment.

Gauvin hopes not. She's thrilled that there will be a baby in the house. And she doesn't think her younger kids, who are just as excited, will let Heather and the baby leave.

In minutes those younger kids clatter through the kitchen door, dropped off by the school bus. Shayna Gauvin, 10, and Joseph Jordan, 8, join Heather on the sofa, reaching for a bowl of cheese crackers.

It was career day at school: Shayna is wearing a black dress because she wants to be a rock star. Joseph didn't quite have the costume, but he wants to be a doctor. During the 65 days when their mother was in the hospital, Shayna had stayed with her aunt, and Joseph with his father's parents. Now they go to the same school and participate in scouting.

Gauvin lives on Social Security and other public and charitable assistance. (Joseph's father also provides child support, but Gauvin doesn't know where Shayna's father is.)

A contractor installed shelves and lever-style doorknobs, refusing to accept any money. A dentist performed $25,000 worth of cosmetic dentistry, for free.

"It's been a while since the fire," Gauvin says. "I think a lot of people forgot about it. Whenever there's a benefit or special event, they donate. You can't count on that all the time."

She worries about the future -- how she will support herself when Shayna and Joseph are older and she is no longer eligible for public assistance. Her Social Security check won't go far.

"I'd like to go out and get a job," says Gauvin, who used to work as a waitress and bartender. "I'm thinking maybe I can do something like answer phones. Making sandwiches would be tough."

She dreams of owning her own home. "I'd love to live on a farm. The kids want a pony."

To read the 2003 series on Gina Gauvin, go to: http://www.projo.com/extra/2003/stationfire/gauvin/

Gina Gauvin can be reached by e-mail at ornatesky@aol.com.

ffreyer@projo.com / (401) 277-7397

THREE YEARS LATER: Journal photographer Mary Murphy narrates a look at the life now of Station fire survivor Gina Gauvin, in words and photos, at:

http://projo.com/ginagauvin

Look back at the disastrous nightclub fire and its continuing impact on its victims, community and the state, at:

http://projo.com/stationfire