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AURORA, Colo. (KDVR) — A Colorado man is raising awareness about the dangers of burns after a car repair accident left him severely injured, leading to over a dozen surgeries and a week in a medically induced coma.
Garan Shaw spent months at UCHealth’s Burn and Frostbite Center in Aurora, where doctors performed numerous surgeries to help heal his skin after about 25% of his body was burned last spring.
“Basically, it backfired, which caused everything in that vicinity to ignite,” Shaw said.
A self-described jack-of-all-trades, Shaw is always working on something around his hometown of Durango. In April 2024, he was helping a friend repair an old car when a disconnected line sprayed fuel onto his body, and he caught fire.
He stopped-dropped-and-rolled to extinguish the flames before the local fire chief arrived.
“I remember him telling me to get in the shade and sit down,” Shaw said. “They didn’t care about anything else being on fire. All the water needed to go on me.”
Shaw was later placed in a medically induced coma and woke up 230 miles away in an Aurora hospital bed. Over the next few months, a team of doctors at UCHealth worked to heal his burns and even reconstruct his ear through multiple grafts and surgeries.
“We try really hard to advocate for our survivors to get them back to the life they had before the injury occurred,” said Dr. Cameron Gibson, a UCHealth burn surgeon who was a part of Shaw’s health team.
This week marks World Burns Week, and Gibson said Shaw’s experience highlights both the severity of burn injuries and the importance of comprehensive recovery physically, emotionally and socially.
“How can you prevent the complications related to burns, things such as infection or long-term scarring?” Gibson said. “How can you prevent the social stigma that can be associated with burns? It’s a very visible injury that can affect people long term.”
Shaw still has several surgeries ahead, but he says some things will be permanently changed, like the loss of sensation in his arms and his inability to sweat or feel cold. But he’s back to work now, taking extra precautions by ensuring a fire extinguisher is always nearby, and gearing up in the right protective equipment.
“I’ve had fire on me before while welding, my shirt’s caught on fire,” he said. “It’s not uncommon in this lifestyle, but I’m definitely more vigilant about it now.”
UCHealth staff is also sharing tips to prevent household burns by keeping children away from stoves, ensuring water heaters are set to safe temperatures, and, if a burn occurs, running it under cool water immediately.
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Anthony Sutton is a business strategist and writer with a passion for management, leadership, and entrepreneurship. With years of experience in the corporate world, he shares insights on business growth, strategy, and innovation through management-opleiding.org.
