Woman burned in gas station explosion 5 years ago “Happier than ever”

Five years after suffering burns all over her body in a gas explosion, Abbey Alexander is “happier than ever,” the 23-year-old wrote on Reddit.

Since the accident, she has been sharing regular updates on the social media site. She posted this one with great joy.

“Almost 5 years after the burn! I didn’t know how I would ever have a normal life or be happy again. Now I’m engaged, pregnant and happier than ever,” it said in full.

Alexander was after Cambodia with her family and got a job as an English teacher. On August 14, 2019, she was on her way back to school from her lunch break when there was a sudden gas explosion on the street in Siem Reap.

“The whole building exploded. We were caught in the fireball,” she recalls to Inside Edition Digital. “We were only in it for half a second. I stopped, fell and rolled over, and then I was hit by a car. That’s how lucky I was that day.”

A coworker took her to a hospital about a half mile down the road. Then there was a bit of red tape to fly her back to the U.S. for medical treatment since she didn’t have international health insurance.

“Because I didn’t have international health insurance, the U.S. Embassy and the State Department had to get me out of there,” Alexander explains. “I had to take out the largest repatriation loan in U.S. history – $250,000. Because of that, they took away my passport until I can pay it back.” In the hope of getting her passport back, she has now filed for bankruptcy.

Since the explosion, the burns have healed. But there are still scars. “I didn’t take as good care of them as I should have. The first year, you’re supposed to wear compression garments 23 hours a day, and I’m still supposed to protect them from the sun. I don’t listen to that. I try to wear sunscreen regularly. But when I got burned, I was a stubborn 18-year-old who thought I was invulnerable, so I didn’t take the best care of them. But overall, I’m pretty happy with it.”

Alexander has lived in Glendive, Montana, for the past few years, working as a teacher’s aide for students with special needs. She is active in several online support groups for burn survivors and uses humor as a way to process the horror she has endured.

“There are days when I wake up and I hate the way my scars look. I hate the way people stare at me in public. I miss my old body, especially when I have memories of what I looked like before I got burned and stuff. And then I’m just like, well, screw it. Because who actually gets blown up in Cambodia at the end of the day? That’s a pretty crazy story to even tell. It’s a good icebreaker at the bar,” she says.

Her parents and brother still live in Cambodia. She would also like to return – if she ever gets her passport back.

“If I ever get the chance, I’d love to meet with the owner of the gas station to get some answers. But I don’t think that will ever happen,” she says, seeking closure.

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