“I’m a phoenix, rising from the fire. You tried to push me down, but I came back higher.”
These are the lyrics that played over and over in Sammy Badger’s mind whilst recovering from a dramatic bonfire accident near Judd Beach that left the budding 17-year-old songwriter wrapped mummy-like in bandages in Vancouver General Hospital’s burn unit for more than a week before she was released into private care.
The Squamish teen suffered extensive burns to her right hand, face, neck and around her ears in March, when a container of accelerant was kicked into the bonfire. The early part of her care included daily debriding in which her bandages were removed and the damaged skin painfully peeled to allow healthy tissue to heal and to prevent more damage or infection. Adding insult to injury, Badger contracted a stubborn antibiotic-resistant staph infection known as MRSA. Despite this, she’s remained in good spirits “most days” and said she’s satisfied with her recovery.
“They said in about 12 to 18 months I will be fully healed with some scarring, but I’m actually getting to really like the scars – so I’m fine if I have them. They are a reminder of what I’ve been through,” she said thoughtfully, adding she will have to wear a compression glove on her right hand, which got the worst of the burns as she shielded her eyes in the accident.
Her spirit through the ordeal has been a beacon of light for many.
After Sammy’s mother, broadcaster Tamara Stanners, tweeted about her daughter’s recovery, Doug Beckett – an organizer for the annual Barn Burner fundraiser, an initiative put on by Barney Bentall and the North Vancouver Firefighters – reached out to see if Badger might be up to performing. When he heard about her latest song, he wouldn’t take no for an answer, Stanners said.
“He looked up all her videos on Instagram and was really determined to have her sing,” she said. On Friday, June 8, the Grade 11 Learning Expeditions student will perform alongside Canadian music royalty at the Imperial in Vancouver including Bentall, Steven Page, Odds, Rich Hope, and Barney’s son Dustin Bentall – who will play a couple of songs alongside Badger, including Phoenix.
Badger, who goes by the name Valor Grey on her YouTube Channel and social media, said it took her a couple of weeks to finish the song once she started working it out in her head.
“It was about a week after I got burned. We were at my brother’s apartment in Yaletown. I was just laying on the couch and my sister Alex was working on her art piece for school and the lyrics just popped into my mind,” she said, adding her sister is also a singer-songwriter.
Little did she know that Alex was working on an art school animation project she had started a couple weeks prior, illustrating a girl who bursts into flames and when the fire dies down, all is left but an egg which eventually hatches into a phoenix that flies away.
Everyone in the room, including Stanners, gets shivers when they retell the story.
“She was on a lot of drugs at the time,” Stanners said, injecting a bit of humour into the moment. “But it’s not lost on us that there were some incredible synergies going on.”
“I wrote the lyrics down when I got home,” said Badger. “Then, more recently – I just didn’t feel like it was finished the way I wanted – I came down into the kitchen and worked on it with my mom and my sister.”
The result is a beautiful and powerful song that captures the ferocious resources this young woman summoned to get through her ordeal.
Studio time is booked in Vancouver with producer JP Maurice for three days at the end of June to record Phoenix, and plans are to make the song available on iTunes, Spotify and other streaming channels. Badger said she plans to donate any proceeds from the song to the BC Professional Firefighters Burn Fund as a thank you for all the support she has received.
“I’m a little anxious about playing the show, but it feels good,” she said, adding her sister and mom will join her on stage. “It’s a bigger room than I’m used to.”
As any proud mother would, Stanners said she is just full of good feelings for the song and the show: “I feel like it’s just going to be a big, awesome jam night that will sell out – as it always does.”
The sense of positivity within the family is palpable. As we sit in the living room for our interview, Sammy’s brother is recovering from meningitis on a couch nearby. He developed the disease due to a reaction from medication prescribed to fight the same MRSA infection that Sammy contracted. Stanners said she believes the love and support they received from friends and the community is what made the difference in how the family has been able to get through the ongoing ordeal.
“We talked a lot about it, you could feel it, the energy coming in from all over,” she said. “And I know it was a really good thing for Sammy. We talked about this recently, she didn’t know how much she meant to so many people.”
Badger agrees.
“It was kind of crazy because when I finally woke up in the burn unit, I had kind of forgotten it all happened, and I was oblivious because of all the morphine and fentanyl that I was on. I could barely see — my eyes were so swollen, but I could hear. I could hear everyone around me, all the good stories that they were telling,” she said. “They’re all sitting on the floor around me. I could feel the love. They were there for me.”
“All her siblings and their partners were there in the room, too,” recalled Stanners, adding Sammy is the youngest of five.
“It was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen.”
“They really helped me get through it. And I try to stay positive through the whole thing, because there’s no reason to be upset, I’ve found. There’s never really a reason to be upset. I’ve just got to try and be positive, and then things will get better,” Badger said, matter-of-factly. “I just wanted to lift the spirits of those around me.”
“But yeah, there’s been some rough days,” she said, more quietly. “It’s hard to put into words.”
Unless you write a song about it.
Proceeds from the Barn Burner go to Jack.org, an organization that is training and empowering a network of motivated young leaders to revolutionize mental health through relentless advocacy, empathy and education.
Tickets are available at Ticketweb.
