Former SF Firefighter's Story Of Recovery

GUERNEVILLE (CBS 5) -- Former San Francisco firefighter Melanie Stapper is lucky to be alive, and she knows it.

"I remember saying oh my God I'm actually dying," she told CBS 5 on Friday at her home in the Sonoma County town of Guerneville.

"The oxygen was so hot that when I breathed in it burned my lungs, but your body won't let you not breathe in," she said recalling the inferno she somehow endured one night in March, 1995.

She's not running into burning building these days. Instead you can find her puttering in her garden.

After being burned on over 40% of her body, suffering brain damage that caused blindnesss, she knows she cheated death and it was the hardest thing she's ever done.

"Oh God, [it was] pure hell. My legs were so badly burned that I had to be in a wheelchair and when I needed therapy and I had to stand up it was just horrific pain," she said.

And now, she can't stop thinking about another S.F. firefighter -- Anthony Valerio.

"I would like for them to know that I have empathy and there is somebody out here who understands what it's like to be there, and survive. But it's a long haul and it's a long haul for the people around him too," she said

Stapper says even after the body heals, the soul never quite recovers. That's one reason she moved to a rural home.

"I couldn't stand the sound of fire trucks going by me all the time," she said. "I had flashbacks for a long time."

What Stapper does know is that, despite all she has suffered, she has no regrets for choosing the fire department.

"Well, that's the kind of thing I would do for free so why not make a living while I'm doing it too you know?" she says.

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