Kelvin on the mend after suffering horrific burns

HAZYVIEW – Kelvin van Baalen (22) missed the annual family vacation at his grandfather’s timeshare at Sabi River Sun Resort only twice in his life.

The first time was when he started boarding school in grade 8 and the second time was in January last year, when he was five months into what would become a 413-day stay in ICU at Netcare Milpark Hospital.

He had suffered severe electrical, fire and inhalation burns on 84 per cent of his body.

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Incredibly, he is on the mend. He left the hospital for treatment in a rehabilitation centre in August, and was discharged on October 24.

Earlier this month he made it back for a week at Sabi River with his family.

He has not lost his love for adventure. Getting back to gliding motivates him to learn to walk again, girlfriend Robyn Anderson said.

“I just like the adventure,” Van Baalen said. “I mainly flew cross-country. You fly with the wind. You don’t know how far you are going to go, where you are going to land, who you are going to meet.”

Barberton offers great gliding conditions due to the mountains. He had competed there before.

The day of the accident was Friday, June 29. “We flew on the Wednesday,” he recounts. “Thursday’s programme was cancelled because the conditions were not good to fly.

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“I wanted to leave, because Friday looked like the weather was going to be bad – we weren’t going to get height.”

They ended up playing golf that Thursday afternoon instead, and on Friday they glided.

“It was a flyable day. There was no lift and I was just sliding down and there was nowhere to land, just trees and a dirt road.”

He aimed for the road, but didn’t see the power line pole next to it until the last moment. He spun and hit the lines with his hip and the current went through his leg. He lost consciousness.

The lines burned through his glider lines and sparks caused a fire underneath, into which he fell.

“If I had not passed out I would have just gotten up and would have been fine.”

Eventually he came to, but he had to undo his harness straps. “And then I was on fire and I rolled.”

He managed to pull himself up against a tree.

Some gliders behind him in the race saw what happened and sent a WhatsApp location for help. The paramedics knocked him out. He woke up from his induced coma three weeks later.

He cannot remember any pain, or much of the year.

He is due for more skin grafts, and needs daily occupational and physiotherapy to relearn how to walk.

“Before I would have felt sorry for someone like me,” Van Baalen said.

“But how I came out of this is that my roommate in the rehabilitation centre didn’t have a right arm – he had lost it in a bike accident. I looked at him and thought I’m happier with what I have.

“I am going to ensure that I get better whereas he will never get his arm back.

“By comparison to some things, this is nothing.”