For 30 minutes each day, Michael Blow II sits patiently on the living room couch as his mother Cozetta gingerly anoints each of his scorched fingers and wraps his right hand with gauze.

“Does it feel right?” she asks as she winds the gauze around her son's tender hand.

Michael is temporarily living life as a lefty. His right hand received second- and third-degree burns from an early morning bonfire accident at Pismo Beach in late October.

Still, the 18-year-old, a youth basketball coach and city Parks and Recreation department employee, is upbeat. Doctors said he would regain full use of his hand when it is fully healed. His hopeful demeanor is a far cry from the excruciating pain he suffered when he fell backward into a bonfire, his right hand severely burned.

A friend quickly pulled Blow out of the fire and the Lompoc High School grad said he had to stick his peeling hand into the sand as “it was the only cool spot.”

Blow was transported first to Arroyo Grande Community Hospital, then later that morning to the Sherman Oaks Burn Center, where he stayed for a little more than a week before coming home.

In Sherman Oaks, Blow underwent two grafting surgeries that used skin removed from his right thigh to repair his hand. He and his mother are hopeful the skin will take and replace the damaged skin which peeled off from the fire.

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They are thankful Blow escaped nerve damage and that he avoided the skin on his fingers fusing together by wiggling them as they began to burn.

For now, Blow said, the pain comes and goes. He said he is grateful that the injury is centered on his hand and will fully heal in about a year - along with the leg used in the grafting procedure.

Blow, a member of the True Vine Ministries church in Lompoc, said he prays for the other patients he saw at the burn center who had much more severe burns that sometimes covered their entire body.

To help with high medical expenses, which included the cost of using a hyperbaric chamber for the burns, a barbecue fundraiser will be held for Blow from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. today at the American Legion Post 211, 636 North H St. It is sponsored by the Legion and the Lompoc Youth Football League.

In addition, a raffle fund-raiser for the chance to win a 7- to 8-foot Noble Fir Christmas Tree is being sponsored by the Lompoc Police Officer's Association. Tickets are $1, which comes with a $3 coupon off the purchase of a Christmas Tree at Burnett's Christmas Tree Farm. For more information about the Christmas tree raffle, call 736-2341.

Blow says his main disappointment from the accident was that it caused him to miss a test for the Air Force the following Friday. Blow said he also misses coaching little league basketball and playing with the kids on his team. However, once healed, he said he plans on picking up where he left off.

“It was an accident,” he said. “I didn't mean to fall in the fire. It just happened. So I just got to work through it and work through everything.”

Neil Nisperos can be reached at 737-1059 or

nnisperos@santamariatimes.com.

Nov. 13, 2006