'They're not going to be the same': Top burn surgeon on the painful road ahead for Wainwright victims - National Post

Copy URL Facebook Linked In X (Twitter) Loading account options Sign In Manage Account Close account menu Sign Out While the psychological burden of burn victims is tied to the physical injuries, “it can be so much greater, and so much more enduring, well after all the wounds have healed,” says Dr. Alan Rogers, a plastic and reconstructive surgeon at Toronto’s Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre. (Handout/Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre) By Sharon Kirkey November 4, 2026 at 7:00 a.m. Soon after operating on one member of the Armed Forces and before he was due to operate on a second, Dr. Alan Rogers described how the lives of his patients, both “young, healthy guys” severely burned in the deadly fire at CFB Wainwright, have been forever altered.

“For me, it’s devastating to see young boys getting injured like this, honestly,” said Rogers, a plastic and reconstructive surgeon at the Ross Tilley Burn Centre at Toronto’s Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, the country’s largest burn unit.

“On the other hand, I appreciate that I have some of the skills and knowledge, and I’m part of an excellent team, and we can help these guys.

“But what we can do doesn’t bring back how they looked before, how they functioned before.

“They’re not going to be the same, unfortunately,” he said.

The two men were transferred by air ambulance Friday to Sunnybrook from a specialized Edmonton burn unit. “We’ve essentially repatriated our own patients,” Rogers said of the two service members who are from Ontario.

He could not divulge personal details because of patient confidentiality. He didn’t want to get into specifics, for fear of crossing a boundary.

“But I can say that they both have very extensive burns.”

A third service member from Ontario was discharged from hospital and is being followed as an outpatient at Sunnybrook.

All three were among those injured when a grass fire broke out during training exercises at CFB Wainwright in Alberta on the afternoon of Oct. 17. According to military officials, the fire ignited in the area where soldiers were using live munitions and spread rapidly because of high winds. The inferno claimed the lives of four soldiers and left 39 others injured, 19 critically.

As of last Wednesday, 27 remained in hospital, 13 in critical condition.

Ten specialized burn nurses and a burn surgeon from the Sunnybrook burn centre arrived in Alberta days after the fire.

“Many of them have been doing burn nursing for 30 years or more. Some of our most experienced nurses. For them to say that this is one of the most traumatic experiences that they’ve observed says a lot.”

The burn injuries in otherwise fit and healthy young people are extensive. That’s traumatic enough on an individual level, but the sheer scale of the tragedy makes it even more devastating, Rogers said.

A major burn goes beyond the skin; it affects the whole person, he said. “Fluid requirements are higher, nutritional requirements are higher” and people are at dramatically heightened risk for infection because they’ve lost the barrier to the environment, their skin.

People can get pneumonia, urinary infections, or bloodstream infections. “And of course most of the bacteria come from the wounds, because the wounds are not yet closed; they’re open.”

The advantage of young people is that they tend to heal well. “Assuming we do all the right things, they should heal,” Rogers said.

But with severe burns, the greatest surgical challenge is that there often isn’t enough unburned skin left to use for traditional skin grafts.

With deep, extensive burns, skin is no longer viable, Rogers said. It undergoes cell death, or necrosis. The dead tissue needs to be removed and replaced with the person’s own healthy skin, because the skin is the body’s primary protection against infection.

Burned skin is often temporarily replaced with cadaver skin, “and then we change it for their own (skin) by way of skin graft surgery,” said Rogers, who is also an associate professor of plastic, reconstructive and aesthetic surgery at the University of Toronto.

With conventional skin grafting, thin layers of skin are taken from unburned areas and moved to burned ones. But sometimes there isn’t enough skin to go around, and unburned skin needs to be reused more than once, which means waiting for the donor site to heal before moving to the next section.

Donor skin can be expanded and stretched to cover larger areas. More revolutionary treatments might also be used on the soldiers, including a product developed by Laval University researchers that involves using a skin substitute grown from the patient’s own cells.

Later, people need reconstruction, scar treatment, rehabilitation, and help returning to family life and jobs, Rogers said.

But the psychological toll begins with what happened at the time of the burn, he said. People can experience a form of post-traumatic stress, re-living the fire in recurring nightmares. Some might experience feelings of guilt for those who didn’t survive. Some witnessed people dying.

Some of the patients will be disabled. Some will be completely dependent on their families. Some will never go back to work. It has a massive socioeconomic and psychological effect

At the hospital, care involves balancing the patient’s level of awareness.

“We can’t keep them completely sedated the entire time. That has ill effects too,” Rogers said.

But being awake not only means having to deal with the physical pain of dressing changes; being awake also means having to confront the harsh realities of their injuries.

“These are young patients, many of whom have been disfigured by the burn injury,” Rogers said.

“They’re never going to look the same. However good the surgery we do, their skin is not going to be normal. They’re going to have a number of contractures. They’re going to have some disability. Range of motion is going to be affected. Strength is going to be affected,” Rogers said.

“Some of them will lose fingers. Some will have amputations. Each and every part of that is traumatic.”

While the psychological burden is tied to the physical injuries, “it can be so much greater, and so much more enduring, well after all the wounds have healed.”

Families can feel relatively powerless at first, Rogers said.

“Some of the patients will be disabled. Some will be completely dependent on their families. Some will never go back to work. It has a massive socioeconomic and psychological effect.”

Many of the injured have young families — partners, wives, young children. “Many are in their mid-20s,” Rogers said.

The goal while in hospital is “to do as good as a job as we can (so that) they survive. They survive with reasonably well-healed wounds, and they rehabilitate as best they can,” he said.

Some who survive severe burns ultimately become supporters to others experiencing similar trauma, “because they have that to offer, and it’s very rewarding for them,” Rogers said.

The Wainwright tragedy is especially heartbreaking “because it sounds as if there were circumstances that were preventable,” Rogers said.

Military police are investigating, and a separate independent board of inquiry will be conducted, officials have said.

Join the Conversation Postmedia is committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion. Please keep comments relevant and respectful. Comments may take up to an hour to appear on the site. You will receive an email if there is a reply to your comment, an update to a thread you follow or if a user you follow comments. Visit our Community Guidelines for more information.

You must be logged in to join the discussion.