Carson Rouzes says it’s important to listen to your elders and even to your own “gut feeling.”
That's the biggest lesson he learned from a presentation by Michael Gaultois.
RELATED:
'Local burn survivor motivating people through his story and message'
'Gaultois awarded Paul Harris Fellowship'
The Grade 8 student of Our Lady of the Cape School said the address by Gaultois was motivational and the message boiled down to not doing dumb things. He thought it was good for everyone in his class that attended.
Gaultois said over time he went from being called a burn victim to a burn survivor. Now he prefers "burn thriver" because he helps so many others through his involvement with the Atlantic Burn Camp and his motivational speaking.
He was only 15 years old on March 25, 1991, which he calls the night he made a choice that changed his life forever when he stayed overnight at a cabin despite his gut feeling he should go home.
He lost a friend in the fire and almost 90 per cent of his body was burned. At the time he was on the wrestling team and in the best shape of his life, which he believes may have contributed to his survival.
After six months in hospital and with the support of his mother doing everything for him the whole time, he went home, but admits there were times when he felt like giving up.
Despite that he went back to school and graduated at the top of his class and went on to post-secondary school and a graduate in psychology.
Gaultois told the students on that ill-fated night a smoke alarm going off would have been the sweetest sound to him. Unfortunately it was a friend waking him in the middle of a fire that actually took the life of one of his friends.
The cause: a candle had toppled over.
Holding a smoke alarm, Gaultois drove home the need for them in every room of the house — with working batteries of course.
“It’s a small price to pay – you could be the next lifesaver,” he told the students.
The presentation was endorsed and sponsored by the Cape St. George Volunteer Fire Department.
