Students taught respect for fire

Cathy Scott

Thursday, March 13, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.

By the time Shelley Blackburn realized a fire had started from her cigarette, it was too late. Her body was on fire.

Blackburn, 34, relayed her harrowing experience to third-graders at Bendorf Elementary School on Wednesday.

Half the fires in Clark County are started by children. That's why a team of Clark County Fire Department firefighters, a paramedic, nurse, fire investigator and public education officer joined Blackburn for a fire prevention assembly at Bendorf.

In the group of about 60 students was Blackburn's daughter, Megan. University Medical Center burn nurse Rose Mary Thurt demonstrated, with Megan as a mock burn patient, how nurses wrap up victims once they arrive at the burn center.

Blackburn suffered third-degree burns to 35 percent of her body in the September 1993 apartment fire.

"I tried to get out and couldn't see where the front door was," she said. "I collapsed. I remember suffocating. The smoke and the heat were suffocating me. The pain was so bad, I tried to take my own skin off."

Two men, whose names are still unknown, pulled her out of her burning apartment in eastern Las Vegas. Then paramedics arrived, she said.

Students fired questions at the panel during the assembly.

Gary Dudley, a firefighter, told children to learn how to "stop, drop and roll" to put themselves out if they're ever burned.

All the panelists reminded the children not to play with fire.

"Most of the kids I talk to are 3 to 11 years old," said Rick Freed, a Henderson Fire Department firefighter and fire educator. "That bothers us people in the fire business. We see what fire does to your little bodies and to your homes and to your mom and dad. ... Be safe. Never pick up that match, never ever."

Blackburn, a former professional ice skater who now works backstage with Siegfried and Roy at The Mirage, warned the students.

"If any of you are really curious, I hope that looking at me will make you decide not to pick up a match or lighter," she said. "Once your skin is burned, it is never, ever the same. When you walk, your skin moves with you. You take for granted that you feel good. Being burned was devastating for me. That's why I'm here, to tell you."