Turia Pitt, a vibrant 24-year-old lady from Australia, once seemed to have it all. She was a successful mining engineer who worked at a diamond mine, which was largely a man’s field. People at work knew she was smart and determined. Turia was a model who made it to the finals of the Miss Australia contest. She did well at job and at school. People admired her because she was pretty, graceful, and confident. She was with Michael Hoskin, her high school boyfriend, who she loved and was very close to. It seemed like she had a lot of choices at first. She was young, in love, and doing well until everything changed on September 2, 2011.
Turia was running in an ultramarathon in the far-off Kimberley region of Western Australia that day. It was set up by RacingThePlanet. The 100-kilometer race was meant to push the best endurance racers’ physical and mental limitations on a course that was challenging, beautiful, and sometimes deadly. But things went wrong midway through the race. The dry ground and strong winds started a fire that damaged the course. These kinds of fires happen a lot in Australia, especially in the summer, and local governments are usually ready for them. But the people in charge of the race didn’t do enough to keep the racers safe. At first, there was only smoke, and suddenly there was fire. There wasn’t enough time for anyone to depart or get a warning.
Turia and a handful of her rivals were stuck in a narrow canyon with no way out. She had no other choice, so she took the decision to go right into the wall of flames in a single second. She died in the fire. 65% of her body has third-degree burns. The fire burned her body, including her torso, face, hands, arms, legs, and body, killing a lot of her flesh. She was barely alive when help arrived, and breathing in heated gases had hurt her airway.
After that, it was a long and hard battle to stay alive. After being taken to the hospital, Turia was put in a medically induced coma. She was in the hospital for 864 days, which is two years and four months, and she had approximately 200 procedures. These involved cutting off her thumb and four fingers, undertaking complicated skin transplants, and making her face look as it used to. Doctors fixed her nose, which was one of the worst parts of her body that had been hurt, after a long and difficult surgery. They filled in the holes with flesh from other parts of her body. The tubes let her talk, eat, and breathe. Every step hurt. A fight that never ceases to get better.
Things were bad at times. When Turia’s pain got too bad, she pondered about why she was still alive and why the doctors had worked so hard to save her. She lay in bed, unable to move because of her damaged body, and watched her old life—her work, her dreams of being a model, and her sense of who she was—fade away. It was a big loss. She was in a lot of pain, but she saw signs of optimism. Michael was always there for her. He quit becoming a cop so he could always be there for her. When asked why he stayed, Michael answered, “I married her soul.” Her spirit is the same. Turia’s strong faith helped him become healthier.
It was scary and freeing to leave the hospital. The agony that wouldn’t go away was nothing compared to the devastation to my mind. There have been a lot of changes in Turia. Her face, which used to be pretty, was now badly hurt. Her hands were hurt, and half of them had to be cut off, so they didn’t work like they used to. She was afraid of what other people would think of her. Would anyone care? Are you sorry for her? Would people believe her if she said she was hurt?
She didn’t know how to deal with a society that usually prizes beauty, so at first she stayed away from other people because she was scared of what they would think of her. But Turia did start to calm those concerns down. She got a tiny bit of herself back with every little activity she did, like going to the store, walking to the mailbox, or appearing in public. She could write again, feed herself, and move around her new body with ease. She bravely began to tell her story in public, not to get sympathy but to show others that life can still be meaningful and full even after suffering through terrible pain.
Turia changed her body, but she also changed the way she thought and felt. She started doing endurance sports again and even competed in some of the toughest tournaments in the world. She finished the Ironman World Championship in Hawaii, which is a hard race that demands her to swim 3.8 kilometers, run a marathon, and bike 180 kilometers all in one day.
People in Australia and all across the world were amazed by how determined she was. She became a motivational speaker and used her platform to tell people how essential it is to believe in themselves, keep going, and think. She wrote books and ran campaigns to generate money for topics she cared about. Most of the time, these were for helping burn victims and people in poor places undergo surgery to cure their ailments.
Turia and Michael had their first child, a son named Hakavai, in 2017. Then came their second son, Rahiti. Being a mother changed her life a lot. It showed that she could still be happy, have a family, and live a regular life after all the bad things that had transpired. She used to be scared that no man would ever look at her again, but now she had a loving family and a lot of people all over the world who were inspired by how brave she was.
For Turia Pitt, it’s not just about staying alive; it’s also about starting fresh. The fire that almost killed her made her who she is now, not the model, the engineer, or the beauty queen. She confronted death and came out stronger. She wasn’t unhappy about her wounds; they made her strong, fearless, and unbreakable. She shows that a rich and beautiful life isn’t what happens to us, but how we react with what happens to us.