Hello! My name is Sylvia, and I run this website. Amongst other things, this page will tell you a little about the site, and why I started it.

I hope you enjoy your visit here, and find this site useful. If you do, please tell a friend about it .... better yet, tell all your friends! (If you don't, please tell me, and let me know why.)

What's the reason for this website?

In March 1998 my twelve-year-old son, Quinn, was badly burned in a petrol explosion. Afterwards, I started looking for websites about burns and burn survivors. I found very little for young burn survivors, and almost nothing for young people about burn safety or first aid. I put this site together to try to fill that gap.

One of the hardest things about being a burn survivor is the feeling that you're different from everybody else, and that other people don't understand what you're going through.

The main purpose of Salamanders Young Burn Survivors is to show young burn survivors that there are lots of people just like them, people who do understand, and to help them cope with what is happening to them.

Salamanders Young Burn Survivors also aims to warn young people about how easy it is to get burned, to teach them about burns, and to tell them what to do if someone does get burned.

Why "Salamanders"? - What is a Salamander?

The Oxford English Dictionary says: "salamander, n. Lizard-like animal supposed to live in fire; person who can endure great heat; spirit living in fire; kinds of tailed amphibian [f. Gk salamandra]"

A burn survivor is someone who has "endured great heat". He or she is a special person who, like the magical salamander, has come out alive from the fire.

Website history

May 1999 - I got my first PC with an Internet connection, and decided to make this website.

June 1999 through February 2000 - I spent this time researching and checking information about burns and safety, learning how to make a website, and putting this site together.

March 2000 - Salamanders Young Burn Survivors went online at www.salamanders.free-online.co.uk.
(If you would like to see what the site looked like back then, there is a screenshot of it on the Site Updates page.)

2002 / 2003 - During these two years I had no PC to work from, so I could not go online and maintain the site, and Free-Online took it down.

March 2004 - After a couple of months spent adding to the site and checking everything, Salamanders Young Burn Survivors went back online with Telewest (later Virgin Media) at: www.kernoweb.myby.co.uk/salamanders.

All changes made to the site since March 2004 are listed on the Site Updates page.

You can help!

Please tell me if you have any questions, any ideas about making this site better, something you would like to share with young burn survivors, or any other comments.

Help spread the word! If you have your own website, please add a link to Salamanders Young Burn Survivors.

If you are a burn survivor, please think about helping other burn survivors feel less alone by sharing your story or your feelings with them. To get your own page in Your Own Stories on this site, all you have to do is email me and tell me what you want to share. You can send me pictures, drawings, poems, ..... anything you want. I will make the web-page for you.

Thought for the day:

This site is dedicated to ..

.. Paul, a young hero who (at ten years old) knew what to do when someone is burned, and saved my son's life.