Girl Who Suffered Horrific Burns in Bus Fire Leaves Hospital After 5 Months

The blood curdling screams. The sirens. The moaning from her husband. The cries for help from strangers. The explosion and the roaring of the flames.

All of these "noises" are what have "stayed with me the most" from that fire in southern Utah, Whitney Copeland—whose family trailer home was lit up in flames last year with three of her four kids inside—told Newsweek.

She and her husband Kyle, a military veteran, had moved into a converted trailer bus with their four children after selling their house. They were planning to travel full-time this summer on the bus to make up for lost time following years of "military separations, addiction recovery & medical trauma," as noted on the family's Instagram profile.

But these plans were unexpectedly derailed by a blaze that unfolded around 10 p.m. local time on December 27 last year.

Copeland said she and her husband were hooking the trailer up before parking the bus for the night when their youngest daughter Emree (7) ran off the bus to say "the heater was making a weird noise."

In the few seconds that it took for the couple to get to the bus, the vehicle was already in flames, with three of their children inside. "There was a propane leak that filled the bus with propane. The pilot light from our heater ignited the bus," she said.

Pushing Copeland aside, her husband ran directly onto the flaming bus to get their oldest daughter Pepper (11) and youngest son Krew (4) off the bus. Their oldest son Kade (10) was in his top bunk and was able to crawl out the window before the bus exploded seconds after her husband got their kids off of it.

The mother had first-degree burns in her hands from putting flames out on Pepper, who sustained the most extensive injuries, with 56 percent of her body burned, including second and third-degree burns.

Copeland said: "Having Pepper in the hospital for over five months was very difficult on the family and on her mental health. Driving back-and-forth from hospital to home, splitting up our families at times left us feeling very weary."

After 42 surgeries over 158 days, in early June, Pepper was discharged from the hospital and returned home "feeling better than she had in a few weeks," her mom said on Instagram.

As of late June, Copeland said Pepper was "working hard at physical therapy and occupational therapy," going to the burn unit three to four times a week "to get dressing changes done."

She will also need to wear compression garments (which help with the thickness and visual effect of the scars as well as the itching), just like her father and brother Krew, for up to two years.

Krew, who burned his hands, arms and face, has undergone at least 12 surgeries and has been recovering in a home near the burn unit. The two middle children—Kade and Emree—survived the fire relatively untouched.

Their dad's burns on his neck and hands have fully recovered and he wears compression garments on his hands. His eyes are still giving him trouble and he'll require two to three more release surgeries, a type of reconstructive surgery, around his eyes.

Copeland said her husband "has a hard time seeing due to them watering and being very sensitive to light. He is unable to drive, and he's told that his left eye will never fully function again."

Aside from the physical and mental challenges, "I think the most difficult feeling to get over is that somehow we failed our kids," Copeland said. "We created this safe haven and home and created a safe space for our kids to be and it ended up being a traumatic and scary place. That's hard."

Reflecting back, could anything have been done differently on the night of the fire? Copeland doesn't think so. "It was an accident and realistically we couldn't have changed anything. If we had changed anything, it may have resulted in a different outcome that could have been far worse," she said.

Eight months since the fire, the family are now living in a three-bedroom home, which a local business helped them to rent, in Nevada near the hospital where the family were airlifted to by helicopter on the night of the fire.

"We won't do a bus again," Copeland said. "We just don't have the ambition to take on another big project like that. But we would love to get a travel trailer to explore the U.S. It will take some time to clean up the trauma we as a family have been through."

The best thing to come out of this tragedy has been "finding out what we are made of— resilience, perseverance, strength and full of love," she said. The family learned how to "show up for each other," when they didn't physically or mentally think they could, the mother explained.

"We were pretty close as a family before the accident, this has only brought us closer," Copeland said, adding: "We are all progressing. It's taking time and work, but overall we are all moving forward."

The biggest lesson the family has learned from this is that: "You only have one life" and you should "live it well and without fear," the mom of four said. "Find things to be grateful for everyday. No matter how big or small the blessings are there, find them and cherish them."