When life changed in an instant Joe Kinan was forced to make a choice — shut down or open up.
Years later the decision he made is leading to a celebration.
He’s planning a first birthday party, something this Lakeville dad never expected to be doing at this point in his life.
His future was uncertain after attending a concert at the Station Nightclub back in 2003.
“They started to play, then lit those sparklers that were in the back of the stage. I saw a flame and knew that couldn’t possibly be part of the show,” he said.
Kinan and his childhood friend, Karla Bagtaz, tried to escape one of the deadliest nightclub fires in US history but they got trapped in the stampede towards the door.
Karla died and Joe suffered 3rd and 4th degree burns over 40-percent of his body.
“I accepted what had happened, I didn’t want to see what had happened,” he said.
For almost two years, Joe refused to look at himself in the mirror.
Life as he knew it, was turned upside down.
Joe spent nearly a year in the hospital and endured 128 surgeries.
After losing so much, what he kept was a will to truly live.
“I have really two choices. I can be miserable and no one will want to be around me. Or I can beat this and want to have company, have people around me. So, I chose the second one,” Joe said.
Years after the fire while, attending a support group for burn survivors, he met Carrie Pratt, who was burned as a toddler from a hot coffee accident.
“You get into an injury that makes you look like this and there’s mental things that go through your head. ‘Is anybody else ever going to accept me the way I look? Is a relationship a possibility,'” he said.
It was, Joe and Carrie are now engaged.
“He was so easy going and funny. He’s just Joe. I didn’t see him as a victim. I saw him as a man who needed a little more help doing things,” she said.
Nine years after the fire Joe proposed to Carrie, but a wedding took a backseat to surgery for Joe.
7News cameras were there in 2012 after he received Mass General Hospital’s first ever hand transplant.
At the time Joe could never have imagined, he’d use those fingers hold hands with his future daughter.
“I was told kids weren’t really an option,” he said.
But last April he and his fiancée welcomed Hadley Kinan.
Continually healing, it seems Joe has newfound joy in his life.
Joe said looking forward he’s excited to have a new family to spend his life with.
“Just health and as much time as possible,” he said.
Joe and Carrie met at the Phoenix Society’s annual International burn convention. On a monthly basis, Joe gets help through Spaulding Rehab’s burn survivors of New England support group as well as from his 24 year old daughter from a previous relationship.