Ondrej Rusnák

I have never been one to block shots, but it seemed completely natural at that moment.

Jaro Janus was an incredible goalkeeper and the whole team had worked hard to build a lead against the USA in the quarterfinals of the 2009 World Junior Championship. We were the underdogs from Slovakia. Not for a split second did I question if I should drop down, block that shot and prevent it from getting to the net.

That decision plays a crucial role in my story.

Thanks to that decision, I was just a few minutes away from a medal. Thanks to that decision, I’ve never become a top-level ice hockey player, even though I had all the prerequisites for it and overcame so many obstacles.

Thanks to that decision, I have had to undergo 19 surgeries in my 30 years of life.

I’ll bet you have never heard a story like mine. I know of none that come close to it. There are many warriors who have had to endure hardships, a lot of who have had to overcome obstacles to get to the top, but I’m sure none of them took the same path that I did. I can’t imagine another fate filled with so many small victories and successes that ended up with no material results.

At least it helped me understand the meaning of life.

So, you want to know what happened to me? A lot of people have asked, and there is no reason to hide it. I have been burned, literally and figuratively, but I am at peace with everything that happened. It is a part of my life. It is part of my story. It has made me who I am. So before I tell you how many things can go wrong in a once promising career, I’ll tell you how I got these burns.

That’s where it all began.

We didn’t panic, my cousin and I. Even though we were just kids, we made the right decision at a critical moment. I dropped and rolled, he threw wet sawdust on me, and then I jumped into a stream. 

I could have injured my head because the water was only about 10 centimeters deep, but I didn’t care. I was on fire. Literally. A concussion seemed like an acceptable alternative

I was barely 10 years old and it was a Saturday afternoon in October at my grandma’s house in a little village. We wanted to light a fire so my cousin poured gasoline on it to get it going. In a flash, the fire grew strong and large and ignited the bottle of gasoline that my cousin still held in his hand. It also became an improvised flamethrower that he was aiming right at me from one meter away. I managed to cover my eyes with my hand, but my shirt and a sweater both burned to ash.

We never talked about that moment again and I held no grudge, even though my cousin escaped unharmed. I was only angry at one particular moment. That was the moment when I had to peel burned skin from my body with my other hand.

I remember every detail because I stayed conscious the entire time. I remember my grandmother starting her car and rushing to Trenčianske Teplice, the closest city with a hospital. I remember how she sped and overtook a Mercedes on a full line. I remember the idiot driving that Mercedes overtaking us again because his ego couldn’t abide an old lady driving faster than him.

No one knew if I’d survive. My dad, who had one of the few mobile phones back in the 90s, got a call telling him that something had exploded and I might be dead. He and my mom were at a stadium, watching my brother’s game. The drive from the stadium to the hospital must have been terrible.

I was moved to the Bratislava burn center on Sunday, underwent surgery on Monday, and woke up on Friday. All this time, I had this one repeating dream. It felt as if I was spinning on a carousel. Five days round and round until I woke up and found out I was still alive.

My face and torso were covered in bandages. I couldn’t even see myself. My life was no longer in danger, but the first week was so painful. The burned areas of my body were agonizing, but so were the areas on my butt and legs where the doctors had extracted healthy tissue to patch the burns.

Imagine having your skin cut from your muscles. I don’t have to imagine it. I lived it.

The experience was similar to Formula One driver Niki Lauda’s, and that story later helped me. Even as a child, I learned to deal with my problems by offering a smile and understanding that it could always be worse. I reasoned that while I had burns on 22 percent of my body, this was a man who had endured burns on 85 percent of his body. He looked like coal, yet he had survived. 

There were people in the burn center who had been struck by electricity; people who had been in a coma for a month. Seeing those extremes, I knew that my case wasn’t that bad.

They let me go home after three weeks, and in a month and a half, I was back on the ice. I played in the Christmas tournament where I won the MVP award. I don’t know if I really was the MVP, but they gave it to me anyway.

The thought of not coming back to hockey never even crossed my mind. I had to stop playing football because of the post-surgical regimen, but I had no intention of giving up hockey, and I didn’t have to.

The Ružinov Stadium, where I grew up, is right next to the burn center. It was both symbolic and convenient because I spent the rest of my childhood in one building or the other.

My problems didn’t end as soon as I put on my skates. The tissue which they had initially removed was dead; it would never recover. As time passed, my left eye started to close and my neck was more and more immobile. Nobody in Slovakia knew how to resolve this and that’s how I met doctor Veselý in Brno, Czech Republic. For the next three years, I played hockey from fall to spring and spent the summers with him so he could reconstruct my burned areas.

It began with doctors placing two expanders in my back; something like silicone boobs. They enlarged them every two weeks so they would expand and make my body grow more skin to cover it. It looked as if I was wearing a weird backpack.

The first year, the expanders got infected and had to be removed. The second year, they burst and had to be removed again. Each summer, I had to undergo new treatments, yet my condition remained the same. The procedures and treatments were very expensive and our insurance didn’t cover it all, especially in a neighboring country. My parents would definitely have had a much higher living standard today were it not for my treatment.

Three years later, when I was 13, the treatment finally achieved success. The surgery itself took 13 hours and I know the doctors saved all that they could. Through these times, it was hockey that saved me. It was the only positive constant in my life. I knew that I’d have to spend every summer in the hospital, but once that was over, I’d be able to play again. 

Even my schooling got sidetracked. I didn’t attend it regularly and sometimes the teachers would have to come to my home. I never felt comfortable in school. When I returned after getting burned, the headmaster called everyone into the gym to explain what had happened, and to make sure that no one would make fun of me. 

What do you think happened? Kids laughed at me. They said that I had two faces. They pointed at me. At least I had a friend in Ivan Dornič, a hockey player who was three years older. One time, he noticed two older boys making fun of me and he caught them. They never laughed at me again, but it was different on the ice. My teammates were amazing. We were friends before and we were friends after. It probably helped that I was always one of the best players so they respected me.

I’ve never heard anything mean from a teammate. Not once. When I became an adult, some opponents taunted me and even though I tried not to let it affect me, this was my weak spot. Whenever someone said something stupid, a switch flipped and I wanted to fight him. Fortunately, I can count those instances on one hand and I know they were just idiots, even off the ice.

My burns had become a part of me, so much so that I even started to think of them as an advantage. It helped me stand out, and it helped me filter coaches. If a coach cared enough to ask me what had happened, we became much closer and playing under him was much more enjoyable. 

The hospital in Brno where they’d put those expanders in my back taught me how to make fun of myself, too. It strengthens you. So when I was later playing center, I always joked with my left wings that they had to be patient with me because they were on my blind side.

It’s true. Because of the burns, I can’t turn my head fully to the left or up. I can only make it about halfway, so it was always easier to play everything to the right.

I know my appearance will always attract attention, but I can’t even imagine it being different now. I don’t mind people looking. That’s one way in which playing sports has helped me. Sports teach you to fight. Every fallback to defend is about overcoming yourself and it’s a bit of a fight. Every fight we have on the ice is a battle of two wills. Ordinary people are not used to this. You don’t have to deal with this in ordinary life. That’s what makes athletes tougher.

I had to be really tough because my problems didn’t end after the successful surgery. One year later, my ureter failed. It was probably a reaction to the trauma my body had experienced. I had trouble peeing and then once during a math class, I had a seizure. They got me to the hospital just in time. A little later and my kidneys would have burst from all of the urine. I had to undergo another surgery and that meant another two months without any physical activity.

Finally, when I turned 15, I was able to function properly with others. People got used to my looks and I could practice all year with everyone else. I got stronger, started playing with Slovan, won the youth league scoring title, and I felt like I could finally have a happy ending.