the whole building exploded we got caught in the fireball we were only in it for I'd say half a second Abby Alexander was 18 years old when she suffered third degree burns in a gas station explosion it happened August 14th 2019 she had recently moved to Cambodia with her family my family went to their on vacation and we were there for a few weeks and I told my parents I want to move here and I want to teach you English and then my dad actually had always had the dream of opening up a guest house
in Cambodia so a little bit of time went by and my parents were like well we don't really have much keeping us in Colorado we don't own a house we can we'll get rid of all of our belongings and move to Cambodia so we got a big roll off dumpster and we all threw everything away and we all went over to Cambodia with just a backpack and a suitcase and as she hoped Abby got a job teaching English teaching English is one of the only jobs you can really get in Cambodia where you make money
roughly around $11,000 a month yeah on the day of the accident she was running late from her lunch break she was heading back to school with a friend so as we're pulling up to the side of this gas station I can see the smoke and I can smell the gas just as we were starting to cut across the whole building exploded I told everybody right afterwards that there was a tanker truck that exploded but I'm going to be honest I don't know if I made that up or not it's so hard to tell and nobody
from what I know there was never an investigation so we don't really know what truly caused it several people died Abby suffered burns on her entire body but it's a very quick like boom and then done but I stopped dropped and rolled afterwards and I got ran over by a car and yeah that was my type of luck that day and luckily we had a coworker that actually had a car which isn't that common there so she was able to load us up in her car and take us to a clinic that was only about
half a mile down the road and then we make it to this clinic and they're one of the best clinics there but nothing compared to American Standards I'd say so it's actually kind of funny I always tell people I you don't wear shoes inside in Cambodia like most places you go you take your shoes off so somehow after having third degree burns to 40% of my body I still knew to take my shoes off so they ended up getting some trash cans and filling them up with ice water you're like putting our Burns in them
which we have since learned makes Burns worse they drilled into my bone directly to get an IV access cuz they were trying everywhere and they couldn't get any IV access for me so they could didn't even give me pain meds first they just went straight into the leg bone and then once we get to this better hospital they told me that they had to intubate me because I had third degree burns to my throat and I really don't remember that much afterwards she was eventually flown back to the States and was cared for in a
Colorado hospital before being discharged in October nearly 2 months after the explosion and that was a super long process to get me back cuz I didn't have international health health insurance so because I didn't have international health insurance the US Embassy and the state department had to get me out of there and I had to get the biggest repatriation Loan in United States history so because of that uh they took away my passport until I can pay that back $250,000 but I've I've filed for bankruptcy on it so I think I could get my passport
back at this point but I don't think the state Department's very pleased with me because they had to they had to go in front of the White House and get special permission for this loan and how are the burns now I feel like they look pretty good I have not taken care of them as best as I should have you're supposed to wear compression gear for 23 hours a day for the first year and you're I'm still supposed to keep them out of the sun I don't listen to that I try to keep up on
my sunscreen but I was a stubborn 18-year-old when I got burned that thought I was invincible so I didn't take the best care of them but overall I'm pretty happy with them I'm very happy with my face cuz my face had third degree burns and they were able to do experimentals uh stem cell treatment on my face it's been 5 years since that horrific day and ever since she's been looking forward she recently shared on Reddit an update on her recovery Journey something she's been doing every year since it happened this time it was an
extra special post so I just decided to put I think I put like almost 5 years post burn never thought I'd ever be happy again and now here I am pregnant engaged in thriving or something like that because of the burns she does have some pregnancy complications so it sounds like I'm going to be induced about five weeks early and have a nicku stay and everything but because of my blood transfusions I received I have some weird antibodies in my blood which are like super rare I think only like 2% of the world has them
or something so it makes things a lot more complicated especially living in such a rural area and there's a huge chance I won't be able to have any more babies after this because of that so it's kind of scary for the past few years she's lived in Glend diive Montana working at a school with kids who have special needs her family is still in Cambodia like my parents both they're authors on Amazon now now where they sell like self-help like chakra healing books and my brother is actually a physics teacher out there now so I
don't I don't see them ever returning she'd like to return to Cambodia too that if I ever have a chance I would love to meet with the owner on the gas station just to try to get some answers but I don't see that ever happening do you want answers I think it would help especially because we're so we're so up in the air of how many people were injured or how many people died how would you say you survived what happened to you like I think finding the humor has definitely helped a lot though cuz
there's days there's days now even five years out where I still wake up and I hate the way my scars look I hate the way people stare at me out in public I miss my old body especially like seeing memories of what I looked like before I was burned and everything and then I'm just like well screw it because at the end of the day who actually gets exploded in Cambodia like to start out with that's kind of a crazy story that I can even be able to tell it's good it's good Icebreaker at the
bar I'm also active in some burn support groups online so I like to be able to show people or reach out to people whenever they're freshly burned just to be able to show them like look it burns suck there's no sugar coting it like I wouldn't wish burns on my worst enemy but it doesn't last forever like one day you're going to wake up and it's going to suck a little bit less and for Abby with a baby on the way it certainly has gotten better I'm Lee sheps for Inside Edition digital
