Five years after a tabletop fire pit exploded outside his Evanston home and burned more than 50% of his body, Michael Benjamin laced up his shoes on Tuesday and ran 19 miles from the site of his accident to Loyola Medicine's burn center in Maywood. He finished with 19 more steps on foot, marking the journey that once required sirens and a stretcher.
Benjamin was refilling the tabletop bonfire stove outside his Evanston home on September 8, 2021, when it exploded, according to WGN-TV. The blast left him with burns covering more than half his body, and he was rushed 19 miles by ambulance to Loyola Medicine's Burn Center, the largest burn facility in Illinois and a burn unit with adult and pediatric verification from the American Burn Association and the American College of Surgeons, according to Loyola Medicine.
A Fight for Survival That Lasted Months
Dr. John Kubsiak, a burn surgeon at Loyola Medicine, said the severity of Benjamin's injuries made death more likely than survival, per the station's report. Benjamin was placed on a machine that took the place of his heart and lungs — a life-support technology known as ECMO that functions as an external heart and lung machine when native organs are too damaged to keep oxygen moving through the body, Loyola Medicine explains in its overview of burn treatment. He was also placed in a medically induced coma during his treatment.
Benjamin spent nearly three months receiving treatment at Loyola's burn center in 2021, undergoing multiple surgeries as the medical team developed new ways to reconstruct his skin and body, the same report notes. That team included not just surgeons but nurses, therapists, pharmacists and dietitians, all working together through his recovery and the months of rehabilitation that followed. Kubsiak credited the full team for Benjamin's survival.
Retracing the Ambulance Route, Three Years Running
Benjamin's run from the site of his accident to Loyola University Medical Center has now happened three years in a row, a personal tradition built around the distance between the two locations. He said he felt very tired but fulfilled after completing this year's run, and credited both his family and Loyola's nurses and doctors with getting him through the ordeal in the first place. Benjamin has two children and says their support, along with his medical team's, carried him through recovery.
Outside the hospital, Benjamin has continued building his life in suburban Chicago. NC Chocolatier produces handcrafted kosher Belgian chocolates, according to a Devon Bank impact report. The long-standing Tel Aviv Bakery is on Devon Avenue.
A Known Hazard Behind the Explosion
Benjamin's accident reflects a hazard that federal regulators have spent years warning about. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission issued an alert in December 2024 telling the public to immediately stop using liquid alcohol-fueled tabletop fire pits due to the risk of flame jetting, which happens when invisible alcohol vapors ignite while someone refills a unit that still holds an unseen flame or residual heat, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, the agency urged consumers on Dec 19, 2024, not to buy or use fire pits designed to burn pooled liquid fuel.
Federal testing shows the liquid alcohol fuel used in these fire pits burns at temperatures exceeding 1,600 degrees Fahrenheit, capable of inflicting third-degree burns in less than one second, per the commission. Between 2019 and late 2024, the agency linked these products to at least two deaths and more than 60 reported severe burn injuries nationwide. A voluntary industry standard, ASTM F3363-19, is meant to prohibit tabletop fire pit designs that let users pour liquid fuel into an open reservoir and ignite the pooled fuel in the same spot, but noncompliant products have continued to draw federal safety advisories.
Loyola's burn team has treated a range of severe cases beyond fire pit accidents, including pediatric patients burned by exploding gel toys in incidents Hoodline has previously reported on locally. For Benjamin, the annual run has become a way of marking distance not just in miles, but in the years since the machines and the coma and the multiple surgeries gave way to two children, a bakery and a chocolate business, and legs that could carry him the whole 19 miles under his own power.
