On April 29, 2024, retired Army Master Sgt. Chris Hiatt was coming in for a routine landing at the Castroville Municipal Airport in Castroville, Texas, when something went terribly wrong.
"I was landing, and I had a catastrophic landing gear failure," Hiatt said. "The right landing gear gave out, which caused the mechanical parts to come up under the fuselage and rupture the fuel tank in a small aerobatic plane I was flying. The fuel tank was between my legs, so that caught on fire, and I was instantly inside a giant orange orb of flames."
He knew he needed to get out quickly and attempted to release his safety harness.
"I noticed the skin came off my pinky, so I went back and tried again and then the third time I just wedged my hand in there and, by the grace of God, I was able to get out," he explained. "I got the harnesses off, and I had to reach into the airplane to pull myself up and that's where I got the burns on my arms. The whole time, my legs were in the fire."
Hiatt said he was wearing a helmet with an action camera to video his aerobatics.
"The reason my face wasn't burned, and I didn't die instantly, is because I was wearing a helmet," he said.
There wasn't anyone around to see what happened, so he had to walk through a field to call for help.
"I started walking across the field and then my vision started coming in and out," he said. "I'd done enough stuff in the Army and enough training that I knew I was getting light-headed; I was about to pass out. So, I stopped and knelt over, controlling my breathing, and did a lot of praying."
Hiatt knew that if he passed out, no one would find him and he would probably die, so he mustered his strength and was able to make it to a building and ask someone to call 911.
The Medina County Fire Chief arrived on the site quickly and called Hiatt's wife, Angela, to let her know that her husband was injured.
"I looked [at my phone] and it said Medina County Fire Department," Angela said. "I looked at my boss and I was like, 'this isn't good because I know my husband.'"
The chief told her that Hiatt was OK, but they were going to take him to University Hospital in Castroville.
"I could hear my husband in the background hollering, 'tell her I'm OK,'" she recalled. Then she heard someone in the background say, "no, we're going to Brooke Army Medical Center."
"I was like, wait a minute, why BAMC?" she said.
The fire chief told her that Hiatt was "a little burned." In reality, more than 28% of his body received third-degree burns.
When she arrived at the hospital, the staff let her ride up in the elevator with her husband. But he was covered up to his neck, so she had no idea the extent of his injuries.
Hiatt spent 68 days in the U.S. Army Institute of Surgical Research Burn Center located at BAMC, Joint Base San Antonio.
The Burn Center at USAISR is the only American Burn Association-verified burn center in South Texas and the only Defense Department burn center. The center provides state-of-the-art critical care, surgery and rehabilitation for burns and burn-like injuries. It has a team of almost 300 burn-care professionals, including doctors, nurses and therapists, whose mission is to provide optimal recovery, restoration of function and community reintegration of burn survivors.
"The [USA]ISR team from A to Z is phenomenal," Hiatt said. "I mean, from the time that I arrived in the ambulance … all the way until today."
"I was cantankerous. I was mean. I was hurtful," he said. "I did things that I wish I could take back because I was in so much pain and I just wanted to be done with this. They never let that bother them. They still took care of me, still gave me what I needed."
Hiatt said the staff also supported Angela.
"They took care of my wife," he said. "When she needed someone to talk to or a shoulder to cry on, they were there for her, too. That's not in their job description."
"All the nurses, doctors and therapists were phenomenal," Angela said. "I can't tell you all their names. It was a blur, and I was on automatic, but they would make sure I was OK and that I was taking care of myself, too."
Hiatt has undergone 13 surgeries to help heal the burns on his arms and legs.
"The recovery from the burns has been the hardest thing I've ever done in my life," he said. "I'm 14 months out and I'm still going to require more surgeries. I think I underestimated how hard it was going to be to recover, what it was going to entail."
"I was hurt so bad that I was ready to just live the rest of my life immobilized in a scooter," he said. "Fortunately, my wife and one of my physical therapists, Kyle Cunningham, [weren't] having that."
Cunningham, also a retired Army veteran, pushed Hiatt to regain his strength, which created a special bond between the two men.
"We were both Army guys," Cunningham said. "I think with him that helped us really form a strong bond, and I was able to encourage him to do things he might not have normally done. I think ultimately that helped him get to a place that he didn't even realize he could get to."
When Cunningham started working with Hiatt, he had very little range of motion in his knees and ankles.
"I don't think he understood how bad it really was," Cunningham said. "We worked together to come up with ideas on how to restore that motion. We were able to layer in some of the more functional training, things like weightlifting with a bar, squatting, deadlifting, those things that also then helped with strengthening and ended up with a result that he was surprised and happy with, I think."
Hiatt is still receiving care at the burn center, but he continues to do what he loves — fly.
His love for flying began at a young age. His first flight was on his dad's lap when he was just 5 years old. The avid pilot took his first solo flight at the age of 14.
"My love of flying is what got me hurt, but my love of flying is what brought me back," Hiatt said. "Nine days after I got out of the hospital, I was back in an airplane."
"The fact that I can get around and I can fly airplanes again is due in large part to everyone at the [USA]ISR," he added. "They gave me my life back."