'I was determined': P.E.I. man fights back from burn injuries to walk daughter down aisle

A man in Unionvale, P.E.I., achieved goals his doctors didn't think were possible after suffering third-degree burns to more than three quarters of his body in a welding accident five years ago.

Vance Easter suffered severe burns in 2011. He was told he'd spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair — more likely, he  would be bedridden.

He credits his daughter, Jewel MacLennan, with helping him get back on his feet. She asked him to walk her down the aisle.

"She said she wanted Dad to take her down the aisle. That was [her] No. 1 goal. And No. 2 goal, when it come to the father-and-daughter dance, she said, 'you're going to do it dad,'" Easter recalled with tears in his eyes.

"I didn't think I was going to do it, but I said, 'If I thought I wasn't, it wasn't going to happen,'" said Easter. "She was determined that I was going to do it, and I was determined." 

'One of the best moments'

MacLennan made that request in 2014 and delayed her wedding by at least two years to give him time to get there. Easter spent those two years exercising in his long driveway, walking to the road and jogging back to his welding shop at least five times every day.  

Three weeks ago, Easter walked MacLennan down the aisle at her wedding. 

He says it was one of the best moments of his life, and the dance was pretty special too. 

"We started just lightly waltzing around and she said, 'Dad, pick it up,' so we started doing twirls, and we had people crying." 

'It was just like a flamethrower'

Easter pointed to his lower arms. 

"These were all bones, and from my knees to the work boots all bone showing," he described, pointing to the now burn-scarred skin.

Easter had been working with slag in his shop in 2011, and said the slag hit something in the shop, and burned through hoses of tanks containing welding chemicals, causing them to explode. 

"It was just like a flamethrower," says 59-year-old Easter.

Easter had burns from his underarms down to his mid-calf on both sides of his body. He lost his eye sight in the accident as well, and is now considered legally blind. He can see blurry shapes, but no detail.

He spent the better part of a year in the burn unit at a hospital in Halifax, during which he suffered two heart attacks, two strokes, kidney failure, and went through many skin graft surgeries. 

A doctor warned Easter's wife, June, that she should start looking for a long-term care bed in P.E.I., because he didn't think Easter would gain enough ability back to be able to live at home.  

'You've got to prove them wrong'

"To me you've got to have willpower, and when somebody tells you you're going to be this for the rest of your life, well, you've got to prove them wrong," explained Easter. 

Rehab doctors at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Charlottetown, where Easter spent six months after leaving the burn unit in Halifax, offered to get him a wheelchair, but Easter refused. He tried a walker and fell, so he asked the staff to get him a pair of crutches. 

"I went from one end of the hallway at the hospital to the other and back and that was the end of the wheelchair." 

Easter continued to push himself, doing more exercise than his physiotherapist recommended. He made it back home by early 2013.

New goals

Easter's set some new goals. He says his eye sight has been improving, and he's hoping to get his drivers licence back, and wants to eventually re-open his welding shop, if he can build up more ability in his hands. 

He's also been asked to be a motivational speaker for other burn patients. His message: "You gotta believe in yourself, that you can do things."

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