Always “Finish Strong”:
The weekend before the JJ’s explosion accident our family had purchased green “Finish Strong” bracelets at my son’s wrestling team district tournament. These bracelets were a fundraiser to help support another wrestling family who was going through a scary battle with cancer.
Fast forward just one week later, Mike was in the JJ’s gas explosion that would forever change our family’s lives. The fire from that explosion burned the skin on his legs, stomach, both hands, and burned his pants almost completely off of him. His wallet, ID, phone…. GONE. This meant when they found him under the rubble of that explosion and blazing fire, he had no identification. At first he was in shock and unresponsive and then became completely incapacitated in a coma . They did not know who he was.
As they were trying to save his life, my children, mother-in-law, and I were trying to find him. We were desperately trying to find out if he was alive, dead, or at a hospital. If he was at a hospital, we had no clue which one of the three he would even be at. When we got to the roadblock at the scene, we still had no answers but the police officer sitting there gave us the closest hospital name so we tried there first.
When we got to the first hospital, the explosion scene was on every television. It did not look good. We didn’t think there could be any chance that anyone could actually survive it. We were guided to the trauma area so we could speak with a nurse to see if Mike was there. Unfortunately, they couldn’t give us any answers because they didn’t know him or anything about him. They had a couple John Does there so the nurse began asking us if there was any identifiable markings on him such as birthmarks, tattoos, or any jewelry. It was a horrible feeling to be asked that because that usually means you are dealing with either a horribly hurt person, unidentifiable person, or a person who didn’t make it through an accident.
At first we said no because at the time, Mike had no tattoos, no piercings, and did not usually wear any jewelry, but thankfully, right before we left to try another hospital, my son had remembered that he had that green “Finish Strong” bracelet from his wrestling tournament on!
The nurse went back to check and sure enough she came back toward us carrying the bracelet in her hand. We immediately thought the worst but thankfully the nurse was able to tell us that miraculously he was alive but he was severely burned and injured very badly and they were attempting to save his life.
The fire from that explosion was hot enough to burn his legs, stomach, both hands, and his pants, but that little green rubber “Finish Strong” bracelet that was on his wrist was left in tact, unmelted, not even dark from smoke like the rest of his skin or clothing…….seemingly untouched.
It was a very long hospital stay and recovery for Mike. We were very grateful that Mike was able to live through those horrible burns and injuries. There were many times during the first month and a half in the hospital that we could have lost him. He was our miracle. We all believed the words on that bracelet that survived the blaze was Gods way of telling us that even though it would be a long difficult road he would make it through.
As soon as he could, Mike put that rubber green bracelet back on his wrist. From there on out he took those words “Finish Strong” very seriously. To him, those words meant he needed to stay strong during his long process of healing and finish his recovery strong. He made “Finish Strong” his daily motto as he worked hard through pain every day after that accident, to not give up. Finish Strong is exactly what he set out to do from that point forward until the day he died! He even taught his children to never give up, work hard, and finish strong in everything they did. He wore that green rubber bracelet every day until it broke a couple years later. We still have that bracelet to this day.
Our main goal of the foundation is to help support young athletes so they can continue the sports they love even when their illness, injury, death, or other unexpected traumatic even affects their families financially. If you know an athlete that meets our criteria and could benefit from our foundation please contact us! We are a relatively small foundation at this time but as long as we have funds in the Foundation, we are happy to help!
We are also always looking for more ways to grow funds in the Finish Strong Foundation. The more donations we get into the foundation account, the more athletes we can help. If you or someone you know are interested in donating, please contact us.