As 15-year-old Michael Brewer sits in the intensive care unit with burns over 65 percent of his body as a result of a horrific attack, one former cop who knows exactly how he feels had some advice for the young man: don't look back.
"You can either sit in your house in a dark corner and wish things didn't happen or you can just move forward," attorney Jim O'Hara said yesterday.
O'Hara was a Plantation detective with a wife and daughter and a son on the way 14 years ago when he was horribly burned in a fiery explosion while trying to rescue two girls from a deranged man.
He suffered burns over 75 percent of his body.
O'Hara spent six months in the burn unit at Jackson Memorial, the same burn unit young Brewer sits in today after he was burned by five teens seeking revenge last week in an argument over a $40 video game.
"I don't really remember anything much from the day of the incident or the next six months," O'Hara said.
After an additional three months living in a rehab facility, O'Hara made the adjustment to life after the fire, which he said Brewer will also have to adjust to.
Local
"His tough times are down the road, you know, three, four, five, six months when he gets out of the acute phase and starts going into the rehabilitative phase, and the surgeries that will follow up," O'Hara said. "Each day was brutal for those first couple of years, just waking up, it's a daunting process and it can be overwhelming at times and it can really get you down emotionally."
But O'Hara is a survivor, and after receiving a hero's welcome here in South Florida and even at the White House, he became a lawyer in 2003 and now practices in Ft. Lauderdale.
Brewer's fate isn't known yet. Doctors say he's improving but his recovery process will take months, maybe years.
While O'Hara, now 47, doesn't look the same as he did before, he's moved on, and that's exactly his advice for Brewer.
"There's never gonna be an explanation that will be understandable or acceptable as to what was done to you, what happened to you," O'Hara said. "So take each day, move forward the best you can and don't look backwards."
