TERRY MCCARTY SURVIVED 73% BURNS AND BECAME A FIREFIGHTER

A boy burned over most of his body in a kerosene fire grew up to become a firefighter. Terry McCarty has since turned to helping other burn survivors.

McCarty was six years old in 1992 when his older brothers tried to light a bowl of kerosene and one of them kicked the burning bowl toward him, PEOPLE reported. The burns covered 73% of his body. The Guardian traced his path from that accident to the fire service in a profile on March 13, 2026.

After the fire, McCarty went through burn treatments and surgeries. He said he had 58 surgeries, and that they caused him to miss school and affected his ability to make friends.

Adulthood brought new walls. “I tried to get a job as an oil technician and the manager that was on duty that day told me that I would be a liability, that I wouldn’t be able to go work for him,” McCarty said in an interview.

The road to the fire academy

McCarty went after volunteer firefighting as an adult, even though he had doubts about whether he could complete it. He failed the candidate physical agility test three times before entering the fire academy.

His LinkedIn profile lists July 2012 as the month he graduated from the Central Kitsap fire academy and became a volunteer firefighter.

He said becoming a firefighter was a spur-of-the-moment decision, and that he hoped it would show people he could do anything.

One fire exercise during training hit close to home. “When the fire reached me in the training and it kind of went over me, it took any kind of remaining fear issues or anything like that that I really had with it,” McCarty said.

He looks back on the accident with love for his brothers and appreciation for the academy training.

Helping other burn survivors

McCarty later worked with organizations supporting children who survived burns. His LinkedIn profile lists him as founder of Burned Youth United.

Good Good Good reported that he worked with the Burned Children Recovery Foundation at Camp Phoenix, which provides burn survivors with counseling and peer support. The program also offers family support and financial assistance during burn recovery.

McCarty said he also works in peer mental-health counseling and helps people navigate recovery. “My job is to really just connect with people and help them realize that, you know, in their journey of healing, really they are in the captain’s seat for this process. I’m just a navigator,” he said.

McCarty now organizes motivational speaking programs for firefighting groups and connects firefighters with burn survivors, Good Good Good reported on October 15, 2026.