Page 3 - June 2021 BSTTW Community News

3 BSTTW COMMUNITY NEWS
Continued From Page 2 “Burned Dog”
part of CGC training was teaching Taka to stay.
“He took a little while to do that out in public,”
Lesley says. “But honestly, he has flown right
through it. He is so smart!”
Taka took the CGC test on July 26 and passed.
Lesley was beyond happy. “I am so incredibly
proud of him,” she says. “Just thinking back to
how far he has come and where he is now, is
just so emotional. The amount of love and
respect I have for him is profound.”
Lesley says she hopes she and Taka can start
visiting the burn center and interacting with
other burn victims as soon as possible.
If you’re interested in training your dog to
become a therapy dog, the first step is Canine
Good Citizen training. Find a CGC class or evaluator
near you.
Puerto Rican Man Almost Died
By: SYRA ORTIZ-BLANES
The Miami Herald April 16, 2021
A Puerto Rican man almost died in an explosion. Now, he
faces a nearly $2 million debt
SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO
For 23-year-old Alexis Hernández, leaving
Puerto Rico in January 2019 to study medicine
in Mexico was the culmination of a lifelong
dream. For as long as he can remember, the
young man from the coastal town of Camuy
aspired to be a doctor.
“I always felt a call to serve others,” he said.
“And medicine has a big impact on the quality
of life of people.”
Hernández arrived at Guadalajara, the ornate
capital of the western state of Jalisco, to
familiarize himself with the city and prepare for
the academic year. Other students from the
island were living in his building and also
attending the university, so he quickly felt like
part of a community.
But hours before his first classes began,
Hernández almost died in an explosion that left
him with second- and third-degree burns over
70% of his body, and a medical debt of nearly
$2 million that he said has even made him
question whether he should have survived. Now
he is waging a campaign with the help of Puerto
Rican lawmakers to get his debt canceled.
In his new apartment, after saying farewell to
his parents, Hernández turned on the water
boiler to take a shower. The heating system
blew up, engulfing him and his apartment in a
violent blaze.
“The pain I felt was indescribable,” he wrote on
his Facebook page, where he regularly
chronicles his recuperation. “I don’t know how,
but I said that everything would be fine (I was
not wrong). I wanted to turn off that pain, even if
it cost me my life.”
Doctors managed to stabilize Hernández at a
Mexican hospital and then transferred him to
the U.S. Army’s Institute of Surgical Research,
a military facility in San Antonio, Texas, that
specializes in treating burn victims.
Hernández spent 20 days in a coma and about
two months in the intensive care unit. He then
began the rehabilitation process to learn how to
live independently again.
“The burns were so painful that I couldn’t walk, I
couldn’t do anything. I had to relearn how to do
everything,” he told the Miami Herald.
Even his daily routine of taking showers and
getting dressings changed was torturous, he
said. Some of his days at the facility were so
busy with procedures, tests, and therapy, he
said, that he would rise from bed at 6 a.m. and
go to sleep at 2 am.
But Hernández was undeterred. He did not lose
his sight, as doctors feared he would. He
underwent 19 surgeries and learned how to
walk and eat again. Other young burn victims at
the hospital, further along in the rehabilitation
process than he was, kept his hope afloat.
Continued On Page 4 “Almost Died”