There was a 50 percent chance that John Huddleston could have died.
So much carbon monoxide had entered the University junior’s lungs during an apartment fire last year that doctors guessed he had brain damage.
Huddleston, however, survived the fire that sent him into a six-week-long coma, covered 40 percent of his body with second- and third-degree burns and showed those close to him that he could endure anything life blazed his way.
Early in the morning of Nov. 30, a fire outside Huddleston’s first-floor West University apartment woke his roommate. The roommate tried to grab Huddleston before saving himself, but the living room was already ablaze and smoke had already entered Huddleston’s lungs, knocking him unconscious before he could escape, Huddleston said.
Authorities blamed the fire on a lit cigarette left on a couch outside Huddleston’s apartment.
The next thing Huddleston remembers is waking up in a bleak hospital bedroom in mid-January, his mom sitting beside him. More than a month had passed since firemen smashed a window and rescued him from the smoldering apartment.
“I didn’t realize I had been there for so long,” Huddleston said.
A helicopter had brought him to Legacy Emmanuel Hospital and Health Center in Portland, “one of the best burn centers in the Northwest,” Huddleston said.
His mother, Gretchen, got the first plane out of San Antonio, Texas, his hometown, and arrived to the hospital around 10 p.m. the night after the fire.
“I was really just caught off guard, speechless and scared,” Gretchen said. “And trying to fly to Oregon was not easy.”
Gretchen said her husband and she would take turns flying to Portland each week, and they eventually started to rent an apartment because hotel stays became too pricey.
“We were kind of like refugees in Oregon,” she said.
Thomas Pogue, Huddleston’s good friend and a sophomore at Midwestern University, said he was in utter disbelief when he heard about the fire.
It happened only a few days after Huddleston and he spent time talking together on Huddleston’s parents’ roof in San Antonio the last night of Thanksgiving break, Pogue said.
“We sat there amidst a light rain until daylight,” Pogue said. “I was so tired, but I swear something just said, ‘Just hang out with John for a little longer, he’s going back in the morning.’”
Pogue, who went to high school with Huddleston, said he felt “devastated” when he heard the news.
The hospital had placed Huddleston in a medically induced coma because his suffering was so severe, and they regularly injected him with potent painkillers.
“Literally, I was getting 100 milligrams of morphine an hour,” Huddleston said.
His parents waited for him to regain consciousness every visit.
Even when Huddleston finally came to in the hospital bed that January morning, he couldn’t speak. He had inhaled too much smoke during the fire, a reality still reinforced by his frequent coughing.
“It was really frustrating to communicate,” he said.
The doctors suspected Huddleston had brain damage, and one doctor pointed to his watch and asked him what it was.
After a few tests, and when Huddleston could speak again, the hospital confirmed that his intelligence was unaltered.
The hospital released him on Feb. 4, the day before his 20th birthday, and he flew home to San Antonio. For a week, Huddleston had physical therapy at a facility where U.S. soldiers badly burned in Iraq stretch muscles and exercise using bike and weight machines.
Huddleston mostly stayed at home, except for one visit to Eugene last spring to take his fall term finals.
He returned to the University for summer school and to spend time with friends.
“After his recovery and return to Oregon, I was even more shocked,” said Tom Donovan, a University senior and Huddleston’s friend. “Not about the burns, but his attitude. It seems that John could be superhuman.”
Huddleston’s scars have not fully healed, and to make sure they do he must wear body suits, or compression garments, that continually apply pressure to his wounds.
When Huddleston sees burn victims with no trace of living through a fire, it reassures him that one day his scars will fade away entirely.
“I definitely can tell progress, for sure,” he said. “It was horrible at first.”
Huddleston said his friends have acted as huge confidence-builders by bringing him out with them and supporting him unconditionally.
Those close to Huddleston agreed that the accident left him unfazed.
“I never got the impression that it got the best of him,” Donovan said. “It was the same John, crazy and funny as hell.”
“He is a real inspiration to myself and others,” Donovan said.
Huddleston and his parents supported one another altruistically, he said. His parents would always tell him he could do anything he wanted, he said.
“I’ve just been blown away because of how strong he’s been,” Gretchen said, noting the positive, confident attitude her son has used to tackle the recovery process.
Doctors presume the scars will be gone within another year, she added.
Huddleston said he has resumed all physical activity, but he must strictly limit the time he spends in the sun because of his skin’s sensitivity.
“I know no other human being like him,” Pogue said.
Contact the crime, health and safety reporter at [email protected]