It was a nice summer even to grill out. But things went horribly wrong when flames shot out from the gas grill, sending a Vienna woman to the hospital.
Both legs are bandaged from third degree burns from the accident on August 30.
Pat Maccini, a commercial real estate agent, was out on her deck starting up the grill.
When she reached down to open the valve on the propane tank, flames shot out, catching her legs on fire.
"This was the part where I was on fire. All this skin just kind of just melted down," said Maccini.
"That was kind of freaky," she said about the moment she realized she was on fire. She ran inside, grabbed her cell phone and dialed 9-11. "I was like, 'I'm on fire.' She was like, 'JJust take a dry, whatever, and just put it out. Pat it down and put it out.' So I did," said Maccini.
She was flown to burn unit at Medstar where surgeons grafted skin from her thighs onto her burns lower legs.
Due to the pain medications, she doesn't remember much from her 10-day stay at Medstar, but she does remember the excruciating pain she felt when the nurses cleaned the wounds, sloughing off her dead skin.
Fortunately, she has no damage to her nerves or muscle... Just the skin.
"I lived through it. I"m happy to be alive," Maccini said.
She guesses that the cause of the fire was a faulty valve, but she is still awaiting a report from the fire marshal.
She says she does not plan to file any lawsuit and just wants to recover and get back to her life.
