Photos

Enlarge photo

Enlarge photo

Enlarge photo

By Jeff Hansel

The Post-Bulletin 

LIVING ON THE EDGE
It's a five-minute walk through snow, trees, dead weeds and tree stumps to the place where Ricky Chilson nearly burned to death.

Here in the snow are the remains of a burned, makeshift shelter where Chilson was trying to keep warm when it caught fire. The serious burns Chilson received have left him, even today, with constant pain that makes it hard to walk or even sit down.

Chilson already lacked hope for the future, but that January day -- also the day he turned 51 -- solidified his feelings of despair.

"People that have disabilities or been kicked around a lot -- prison terms, jail terms -- already get pushed away from cars, jobs, transportation -- so many things. And then once a person's been kicked down, you don't get up. There's no way you can get up," Chilson says. "Once you're poor, that's all there is to it."

A Rochester police officer detailed the fire in a report: "From the charred debris, it appeared that either part of the tarp of the lean-to, or possibly a blanket, may have caught fire from the campfire and either fell on Chilson as he was sleeping or he was wrapped in it.'"

Chilson doesn't remember much about what happened after he realized he had been burned. He can't even recall the face of the woman who called 911 after seeing him wandering along West River Parkway.

"She called me in the burn center," he said. "I don't remember what she said. She said I was on the road."

Hazy memories

His memories of the fire are unclear, but some details stand out.

"It was dark when I woke up. There was no tent. The next time I woke up, I was on a helicopter. Just for a brief minute I could hear the helicopter. I'd been on a helicopter before in the service," he said. "I blacked out and lost about two months."

He was transferred after treatment to a nursing home in northern Minnesota for long-term care. Against health-provider advice, he checked out and returned to Rochester.

"I came back here and my cousin picked me up when I came back," Chilson said. He found a place to live after someone repaid a debt to him. But then he was arrested on an assault charge and would later be convicted of failing to register as a sex offender.

The fire took much of his eyesight, he said from jail, and left him with debilitating pain. Chilson has large, angular scars on his back from the harvesting of skin grafts needed to replace skin on his legs. He is worried he will eventually lose his left leg, because the remaining skin lacks blood flow.

He has lost much of the tissue on the front of his shins, the backs of his upper legs and his buttocks.

As a homeless person, he says, it doesn't matter if the weather is hot or cold -- like it was the day he was burned.

"You don't have a choice. You've got to deal with it," he said.

A dog's life

He compares life on the streets to that of a dog. An animal -- or a person -- once beaten down might get so down that it can't get up again. Even for basic needs.

"I've been on my own since I was 13," Chilson said. "My dad worked. My mother worked. My grandfather died, and I learned how to take care of myself." He has lived most of that time in Olmsted County.

"I trapped. I fished. I raised hunting dogs. I went in the Marine Corps at 17. I was the youngest and smallest," says Chilson, who appears weakened and shrunken by age. He said he participated in "the float" that pulled prisoners of war out of Vietnam.

He says he was thrown out of the service for bad behavior.

When not in jail, Chilson often lives outdoors.

"I guess you'd call me a survivalist," he says. He notes that "I wasn't drunk" during the fire, saying he gets drunk sometimes -- "but not that time."

Others in the homeless community can relate.

Dwayne Helling, originally from Houston, said he also has experience with fires. He reads at night, and because flashlight batteries cost money and don't last long enough, he used candles.

"I read myself to sleep, and then I wake up -- the tent's on fire. It happened to me twice," said Helling, who has been on the street since age 11 or 12. "If it wasn't for that sound -- that sizzling -- that's what woke me up. So now I'm pretty leery around candles.

After the last fire, a pastor gave Helling a new tent. The faith community often provides support to the homeless.

For Chilson, who has been transferred to the Minnesota Correctional Facility in St. Cloud, the injuries from the fire will last the rest of his life. He has difficulty sitting because of the injuries to his buttocks, and walking is difficult because of the pain.

"Oh, it hurts all the time. It hurts all the time. It never stops."