Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, December 13, 1993 TAG: 9312130075
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RON BROWN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Doctors say Thomas Leffel is recovering nicely from the burns that almost killed him.
The pain in his heart will take longer to heal.
In October, the 66-year-old Roanoke man was critically burned in the inferno that was once a home. His granddaughter, Melody Caldwell, died there.
Melody had not had an easy life. She had not walked or spoken since an automobile crash five years ago, in which a gear-shift lever pierced her brain.
Doctors wanted to disconnect her life-support systems. Melody's mother, Sherry Smith, said no.
Thomas Leffel was always beside her.
He looked after Melody during the day; her mother took over at night. Melody needed constant attention.
"For five years, she was my whole life," he said.
With him at her side, she learned to reach out, laugh and pucker her lips to kiss.
"I put my life on hold," Leffel said. "I did nothing for myself. She knew as long as I was around, she could feel safe. I believe God called me to it."
That belief is what is keeping the devoutly Christian man on course in the face of what he has been through.
"She's in God's hands now," he said.
The day she died started out like most others since her accident.
In the mornings, Melody would chuckle at Bozo the Clown on TV while lying in her hospital bed in a first-floor sitting room, which had been converted for her care. In the afternoon, she would watch "Club Dance," country and western's "American Bandstand."
Leffel would read to her, hoping one day she would speak back.
In between television shows, Melody would look out the window beside her bed and smile as she would see people walking up the sidewalk.
"I learned patience. I learned love," Leffel said. "She never gave up."
But on the afternoon of Oct. 11, Leffel learned how terrifying life can be.
When he smelled something burning, he knew immediately that he had to get Melody out of the house.
Fire investigators say a faulty motor in her hospital bed sparked a blaze beneath her.
She hollered as Leffel scooped her from the bed, cradled her in his arms and carried her toward the front door of the house, in the 1200 block of Chapman Avenue Southwest.
He grabbed the deadbolt lock, but it wouldn't turn. He had forgotten that the door was warped, and the only way the latch would turn was if he put his knee against it.
Frantic, he decided to lay Melody down on the floor and go back through her room to get to a window.
When he turned, he was faced with a new adversary.
Smoke.
"When I looked at the room, it looked like the black dark of night," he said.
Going back through the sitting room was their only hope of survival.
Leffel started toward the window. Then his shirt caught fire.
A piece of burning ceiling fell on his head, searing his scalp as smoke started choking him.
"When I got to her bed, the first thing that popped into my mind was I wasn't going to make it," he said. "I was gasping for air."
The window beside her bed had never been easy to open. For some reason, this time it was. Leffel offers his own explanation.
"I believe an angel opened the window," he said.
As he tumbled onto the ground outside, he pulled the burning shirt off over his head.
He collapsed on the sidewalk. A man ran up to him.
"My Mel's in there! My Mel's in there," he remembered screaming, shortly before firefighters were able to get through the front door.
He saw Melody inside.
"I knew she hadn't made it," he said.
The 20-year-old woman died of smoke inhalation.
He remembers rescue workers cutting the burned clothes away from his legs and the helicopter ride from Roanoke Memorial Hospital to the burn center at the University of Virginia.
He couldn't see, because his head was so badly swollen, but he remembers attendants talking about how he wasn't going to make it.
Once inside the hospital, he said, God took over. Each day, he defied the odds. Each day, he got better.
Despite having a back that is a patchwork of skin grafts and a scalp reconstructed from leg tissue, he was off the critical list in 10 days.
"They called me their Miracle Man," he said.
In three weeks, he was starting to eat table food again. He was released from the hospital in a month.
Physicians took a photograph of his back as a textbook example of how a properly healing skin graft should look.
Each day he faces the pain of dousing newly attached skin in bath water and coating it with grease to keep it supple.
He still takes painkillers. But as he reduces his medication, he has begun to deal with the memories of the fire and what he has lost.
The community has helped. People have donated $2,500, clothing and a houseful of furniture to help him and Melody's mother. The family is considering legal action against the hospital-bed manufacturer.
But for Thomas Leffel, the terrible memories, and the self-doubt, linger.
"You see, she was helpless," he said. "I believe that God wanted me to take care of her, and I didn't. The only thing that bothers me is that I'm a failure."
He admits that Melody may have seen things differently.
"She smiled. She smiled all the time. She never frowned," he said. "She just smiled."
by CNB