Speaker 1: Jamie gripped the hose and aimed a steady stream along
a fence line to prevent the fire from jumping in.
Speaker 2: It was so hot and you can't communicate with the truck.
You just had to give them handsignals.
Speaker 1: Suddenly the fire shifted and started moving toward in the
brush truck Jamie was on.
Speaker 2: And so on. In the back of my little brush truck
is two ten gallon gas tanks.
Speaker 1: The wall of fire closed the distance. Jamie could see it,
he could feel it.
Speaker 2: I'm thinking, man, here comes this fire. I'm going to explode.
Speaker 1: This is the Miracle Files. I'm Emily Jones.
Speaker 3: And I'm Holly Worthington.
Speaker 4: We're two sisters who love a captivating true story, but
we're also seeking more light in our lives.
Speaker 1: So we're on a mission to find and share unforgettable,
uplifting stories of God's miracles. We hope you'll join us
on this journey.
Speaker 3: Welcome back to the Miracle Files. We get to introduce
you to an amazing man today. His name is Jamie Cashin.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he is incredible and you're going to find out why.
But before we start, here's just a little glimpse of
what he's had to go through.
Speaker 5: I get stared at every day.
Speaker 2: You know, people will ask why you melted, but you
know what's wrong with your fingers. I think it's just
a built in empathy that these kids have because they're
just so innocent.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this man has scars and what he went through
was so crazy. But we promise you before this ends,
you will love both this man and his story.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you really will. All right, let's get started. The
first fire that changed Jamie Cashon's life didn't begin in
an open field. It started at home. Jamie grew up
in Joshua, Texas, a small town with one stoplight and
the kind of familiarity where people notice when someone else's
dog is in the wrong yard. In other words, news
travels quickly in a place like that, and one day
Jamie received news that no fifteen year old boy wants
to hear. He was at school when he was informed
that his family's house was on fire. His mother had
left the dryer running, which had somehow ignited. Volunteer firefighters
were called, but everyone in the department was at their
day jobs. No one could get to the fire quickly, and.
Speaker 2: It took a long long time from fire deform it
to get there to put it out.
Speaker 1: By the time the firefighters arrived, the damage was done.
The worst part. Two of his family's pets had died
in the fire. Family photographs and childhood keepsakes were gone.
The structure still stood, but something inside Jamie shifted permanently
that day. He felt heartbroken at the loss of his home,
but beneath the grief, he also felt something else resolve.
Jamie was determined to do whatever he could to keep
other families from experiencing the same kind of trauma, so,
at fifteen years of age, he decided to become a
volunteer firefighter himself.
Speaker 2: So I thought to myself, you know, if I join
this fire department, I've got lots of energy.
Speaker 5: I can get to the station quick.
Speaker 2: You can get out of school, and frankly, girls thought
firemen were cool.
Speaker 1: At fifteen, the decision seemed like a no brainer to Jamie,
but there was someone who didn't find it a good idea.
Speaker 5: In the slightest you had to sign a form.
Speaker 2: My mother had to sign a permission for him, and
she wouldn't do it. She's like, you know, what is
too dangerous. I'm gon'n let you do it. If your
dad wants you to do it, you can do it.
And I just threw back, Well, my granddad was a firefighter,
My uncles, my cousins, we got a lot of firefighters.
Speaker 5: They've been fine. I'll be fine.
Speaker 1: Jamie's mother refused to sign the form his his father
finally consented. It may sound strange for a teenager to
join a volunteer fire department, but Jamie wasn't just any teenager.
Responsibility had been part of his life for many years.
When he was five years old, his mother was paralyzed
from the waist down in a car accident that broke
her neck. From that moment forward, childhood looked a little
different for Jamie than most kids. He learned how to
bathe his mother, He learned how to catheterize her. He
learned how to assist with things most children are never
asked to see or do. While other boys were still
insulated from hardship, Jamie was quietly stepping into manhood. Though
challenging at times, Jamie's childhood was also inspiring. He watched
as his mother refused to surrender to her circumstances. Though
confined to a wheelchair, she had a zest for life
and a fire burning inside of her.
Speaker 2: She could still ride roller coaster. She went Paris outland.
She didn't give up on laugh.
Speaker 1: That strength imprinted itself on her son. After joining the
volunteer team, Jamie bought his own fireproof jacket. Because the
department did not have excess funds, he responded to every
call his pager announced, dumpster fires, brush fires, minor emergencies.
By the time he turned sixteen, he had gained some experience,
but unfortunately not the kind that prepares you for a
county wide catastrophe that came on February twenty fourth, nineteen
eighty four. When his pager sounded that day, the dispatcher's
voice carried an urgency that made Jamie's pulse quicken.
Speaker 2: The pager went off, and this lady's screaming, Hey, this
is a big fire. We've got fort Worth going to assist.
All these small towns are coming together to help. This
is a twenty five hundred acre grass fire. And the
flyings are eighteen feet high and the winds are gusted
at to.
Speaker 5: Forty two miles an hour. So I know you've heard it.
Speaker 2: God will give you never more than you could handle.
And there were several signs that day that God didn't
me on that fire.
Speaker 5: But I ignored all of them.
Speaker 2: I was too pumped up, too fired up, and one
to get on sane and just wanted to do my deal.
Speaker 1: In February, the grass in Texas is dry and brittle,
and on this particular ranch, the grass had grown to
over three feet tall. Fuel waiting to ignite. Jammie climbed
onto a brush truck and f two fifty fitted with
a five hundred gallon water tank, and took his position
in a small cage at the front of the truck.
He gripped the hose and aimed a steady stream along
a fence line to prevent the fire from jumping it.
Smoke rose across the field and the flames crackled. The
heat was intense enough to singe the hair on his arms.
Speaker 2: It was so hot, and you can't communicate with the truck.
You can now, Back then you could not. We just
had to give them handstickles. So it's scorching me pretty bad.
Then all of a sudden we got a May Day
on the radio.
Speaker 1: Larry Stevens, a local feed store owner in his thirties
and a father of three, had volunteered to help drive
a water tanker. He was not experienced with the manual transmission,
and his truck stalled in the middle of the ranch,
surrounded by unburned grass, with the fire closing in on him.
To reach him, the crew would have to drive through
that same tall grass. Jamie moved from the front platform
to the back of the brush truck so they could
move faster. Suddenly, the fire shifted and started moving toward
both Larry Stevens and the brush truck Jamie was on.
Speaker 2: The wind had changed directions and started coming towards us.
Speaker 1: The raging inferno was frightening enough, but there was something
else that scared Jamie even more so.
Speaker 2: On the back of my little brush truck is two
ten gallon gas tanks, like you'd see on the back
of the old Jeeves in case she ran out of gas.
Speaker 5: And I'm thinking, man, here comes to fire.
Speaker 2: By these two ten gallon gas tanks, I'm going to explode.
Speaker 1: What had seemed safe and manageable suddenly was not. The
wall of fire closed the distance. Jamie could see it,
he could feel it. The gas tanks were going to blow.
Jamie couldn't just sit there without telling the driver, without
even knowing if the driver noticed, Jamie jumped off the
truck and hit the ground running.
Speaker 2: And I'm running the opposite direction of the fire. And
then the wind changed directions again.
Speaker 1: The fire had shifted so that Jamie was actually running
toward the flames. He adjusted his direction, but time was
something he wasn't just short on. Time was out. Grass
fires don't creep forward slowly. They advanced with terrifying speed.
Within seconds, the flames caught up to Jamie. They began
licking at his back. Curiously, Jamie was out of options.
He thought back on his training, and.
Speaker 5: You're supposed to stop, drop and roll.
Speaker 2: So I'm rolling. And as I'm rolling, I'm just cooking.
Because I'm in the middle of the spire.
Speaker 1: There was no safe, already burned ground to drop onto,
no blackened refuge, only dry grass being swallowed up by
the flames. Jamie's flesh was literally melting, the ground itself
was burning. Rolling did nothing to extinguish flames that were
fed by everything around him. His fireproof coat ignited. Flames
shot up the collar and onto his face. The roar
of the fire was overwhelming, swallowing all other sound, smoke,
and heat disoriented him. He couldn't see clearly, he couldn't
hear anyone calling his name. In that moment, a realization
settled over him with absolute certainty. He was going to die.
He only had one place to turn. He needed God's help.
Speaker 2: And I'm crying out to God not to make a deal.
But I'm just like, please don't let me die. I'm
only sixteen, you know I don't want to die.
Speaker 5: Save me, save me, save it. I'm screaming this.
Speaker 1: Then something happened that Jamie has never been able to
explain through natural means. He felt himself being lifted. He
felt his body rise.
Speaker 2: Either Lord, God himself, Jesus, or an angel. Somebody lifted
me up without a fact, somebody lifted me up. I
did not get up on my own accord, not at all.
And no fireman lifted me up because there was only
one left and he had been burned to death doing that,
so no one went in the fire and pulled me out.
Speaker 5: I physically rose up. I just simply coasted.
Speaker 2: I was perpendicular, several felt the ground, and I couldn't
see because my face was on fire.
Speaker 5: Physically rose up and when directly to a fireman.
Speaker 1: Dwayne Caps, the firefighter and driver of the truck, saw
Jamie near the fire's edge and rushed forward, suffering second
degree burns himself while beating out the flames consuming Jamie's body.
Dwayne placed Jamie on the back of the truck. Jamie's
mind raced with questions, am I going to die? His
boots were still smoldering, melting into his feet through the smoke.
With Jamie jostling in the back of the truck, still
writhing in pain, Dwayne raced toward town. The eighteen foot
flames had tragically engulfed Larry Stevens, the man driving the
other truck. They should have taken Jamie as well, even
so he would still have to journey through the flames
of adversity.
Speaker 2: So we finally get to a small hospital called Huglee Hospital,
and as they willed me in, I was filmfare aware
of what was going on. Matter of fact, it hurts
so bad that it just didn't hurt anymore, because it
hurts so bad cooking that you just you just don't,
you just didn't fill it.
Speaker 5: God puts you in shock.
Speaker 1: Jamie was still conscious enough to remember being wheeled through
the doors of the hospital He remembers the sound of
his mother arriving, the loud, metallic click of her ring
hitting the spokes of her wheelchair as she hurried toward him.
Even though she'd been a paraplegic since Jamie was five
years old, at that moment, she moved faster than anyone
else in the room. She screamed Jamie's name. He told
her he was okay, but he wasn't. From there, Jamie
was airlifted to Parkland Hospital in Dallas, home to one
of the state's major burn units. Doctors placed him in
a medically induced coma for weeks, but when he awoke,
the real battle began. Thirty six percent of his body
had been burned, much of it third degree. His left
side was worse, face, hand leg, his lungs had suffered
damage from the heat and smoke. Skin grafts became routine.
Dead tissue had to be washed away daily. At Parkland,
they administered strong pain medication, even so it was excruciating.
Speaker 2: They will slash skin off your body when it's healed
and put it in a proper place, But if you
don't have that available or you're dying, they give you pigskin,
so they put pig skin on parts of my legs,
parts of my face.
Speaker 1: When a doctor recommended amputating three of Jamie's fingers, his
mother intervened, sitting in her wheelchair beside Jamie's bed. She
refused the doctor's recommendation, and.
Speaker 2: He says, hey, we're going to have to cut off
these three fingers because they're not going to be useful.
And my mother was there and she says, well, I
can't use my legs, but you're not going to cut
them off. I want to keep them. He's going to
keep his fingers so that he can use him or not.
Speaker 1: Her voice carried the authority of someone who had already
lost enough. Eventually, Jamie was transferred to Shriners Burn Institute
in Galveston, where treatment grew even harsher. There he endured
daily bardement to remove the dead and damaged tissue in
a bleach filled tub without pain medication. The pain, he
would later say, surpassed the fire itself. The only day
he was spared the scrubbing was surgery day, and surgery
felt like relief. There were moments when he wanted to quit,
when the pain and exhaustion felt heavier than hope. He
told his family. He was tired and ready to give up.
Speaker 2: My mother fell out of her wheelchair and pulled herself
across their arms, then tried to lift herself up and said,
I don't have these lags.
Speaker 5: I never gave up, and you will not give up.
You will not give up.
Speaker 1: So he didn't. Instead, he fought through months of grueling
recovery until he was finally released from the burn center.
But then, upon returning to high school, he faced a
different kind of fire. To keep his scars from thickening,
he had to wear a tight plastic face mask twenty
three hours a day. His hands were fitted with splints
and wires that stretched his healing fingers. When he walked
into a private school hallway wearing that mask, teenagers stared,
some pointed, some laughed. Humiliation burned almost as fiercely as
the flames had. He called home, asking to leave. His
mother listened quietly and then asked one question, and.
Speaker 2: She goes, how did you get to this phone? And
I said A part me. She goes, how'd you get
to the phone to call me? I said, well, I'll waltkch.
She goes, that's right. I'll never fill the grass, never
swim I'll never run on, never jog, I'll never ski.
Now you walk back to your desk and you learn them.
Yeah she was something and yeah, very very very very strong,
and that's what you need.
Speaker 5: You know that, God knew that's what I needed.
Speaker 1: Over time, survival became something more than endurance. With a
mother who encouraged Jamie to fight and a mighty God
who healed Jamie's life, Jamie returned to service, eventually becoming
a reserve firefighter and working in fire prevention. He now
teaches young children about fire safety, standing before them openly
scarred and unashamed, using his own story as a warning
and a testimony. He also devotes his life to martial arts,
rising through the ranks over decades to a tenth degree
black belt, the highest rank in American karate. What began
as a way to defend himself has become a platform
to encourage others, especially children who feel different, invisible, or broken.
He kneels to their level. He speaks life into them.
He reminds them they are capable. The boy who once
tried to run from flames now walks back into hard
places willingly. A life nearly taken by fire became a
life committed to pulling others out of it. And when
Jamie reflects on that day in nineteen eighty four, on
the moment he rose from the ground and moved through
eighteen foot flames toward the only firefighter left on scene,
he does not offer a scientific explanation. He offers a
testimony to anyone who is going through their own fire,
their own depression, their own insecurity, their own pain.
Speaker 2: God trust me with these scars, so I need to
make them count. I was in an oven, I mean,
I was in a twenty five hundred acre even cooking
for almost a minute in eighteen feet flames, and just
the miraculous miracle of me being pulled out of that is.
Speaker 5: I just can't. I really can't grasp it at times.
Speaker 2: I mean, I was surrounded by flames, I cried out
to our Lord Jesus, and I got saved.
Speaker 5: And the same thing can happen to you.
Speaker 1: The scars Jamie carries are no longer reminders of destruction,
their proof of redemption, and that God carried Jamie through
fire and can carry you through it too.
Speaker 4: So many things I love about this story. I mean,
Jamie is now one of my heroes and what he
experienced is just absolutely incredible. It's unexplainable.
Speaker 1: I know, it's like whatever whoever carried him out of
that fire, like that was divined it. I have no doubt.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, that came from God. And he said that
there was no one else that could have carried him,
that he didn't raise himself up, and that he was
carried out of the fire to the fireman.
Speaker 1: It's yeah. He actually sent us a video clip all
the way from back in the eighties when this happened,
he was on the news, so it's really cool to
hear him in his perspective at that age.
Speaker 6: Fireleel volunteer firemental around that area, including the town of Joshua,
helped bite the blaze, but before that blaze could be
brought under control, free firemen were injured. Thirty eight Joel
Larry Stevens burned over ninety percent of his body later
died at Parkland Hospital, but his sixteen year old colleague
is making a remarkable recovery. Is the subject that the
Knights followed a file with Phyllis Watson, Phyllis Tracy.
Speaker 7: Young Jamie Cash and suffering burns over twenty eight percent
of his body. Doctor said it would take at least
six months before he was ready for any sort of therapy.
But Jane is fooling everyone. He wanted to dance for
our camera, but his therapists put him to work. For
the past few months, Janie's been dancing his way through
pain and misery. He never stopped teasing or joking with
those around him, even though he knows how close he
can hang to death. The fire Jamie was fighting last
February twenty six almost took his light. You can see
what a strap of his fire helmet blocked. Flames below
his chin, scars mark where his boot burned through. His
hands are charres, his nails are mangled. Most burned patients
who've gone through what Jamie has wouldn't be ready for
this type of therapy so soon after their injury. But
Janie isn't an ordinary person.
Speaker 2: Just may I just like to help one of my
goals to go back and do it again.
Speaker 6: No, I can't wait. I'll be laying in the hospital
bed and doctor walked by the beeper in his start beeping.
Speaker 7: I'd jump up, you know, on your ado. Jamie is
ready to go. Just two months after his accident, he
still wants to be a fireman. He admits there was
a time lying in the burn center that he had
his doubts, but his mother, who's confined to a wheelchair,
would not take I can't as a reason for anything.
Speaker 1: She's sit in that woochard the whole time I was
in there.
Speaker 5: You know what laid me.
Speaker 7: His mother may be his link to strength, but Janie
has his own philosophy about life, life and love. But
those who may be suffering through what he has just
he offers this bit of advice.
Speaker 1: Oh don't quit, Just don't quit, Just keep on praying.
Speaker 7: That's philosophy of help. Jamie keep up with his school work.
He's a sophomore now and will pass at the end
of the school year with klat.
Speaker 1: Isn't that so cool to see him as like this
young man with such a positive attitude.
Speaker 4: Yeah, even back then, Jamie wanted to immediately get back
out there and fight fires again and help others.
Speaker 3: And it reminds me of that quote. If you heard
that quote.
Speaker 4: By mister Rogers where he said, when I was a
boy and I would see scary things in the news,
my mother would say to me, look for the helpers.
He will always find people who are helping, and that's Jamie.
Speaker 3: He is a helper. He is that truly lives to
help and serve others.
Speaker 1: I know, you know, it's so interesting. So we have
another story to share about Jamie just to illustrate what
kind of a person he is. He was in Alaska
and he witnessed this man, this like twenty something year
old man, robbing a cab driver. And this cab driver's
like in his seventies, and this cab driver's like begging
for his money back, and this big man is just
not going to give him his money. And Jamie steps
in and is like, hey, what are you doing. And
he follows this big guy, probably twice his size into
the hotel and he confronts him and he says, give
him his money back. And this big guy like sees
Jamie half his size and is like, yeah, you're not
going to tell me what to do, and he goes
and he basically attacks Jamie. But as we all know,
Jamie's got skills, and so here's this was all actually
caught on video. So here's a little clip of that
moment when he is fighting off this robber. Okay, so
Jamie continues to warn this guy to stay back, telling
you this man is just circling around him, and he
approaches him, gets right in his face, and then Jamie
starts to defend himself. I mean he tried to warn
him several times, and the guy just wouldn't stop.
Speaker 6: At you.
Speaker 1: So then they end up wrestling.
Speaker 7: You're fighting through over here.
Speaker 1: This is Eventually they end up wrestling on the ground
and Jamie gets this guy pinned. Isn't that crazy.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So Jamie gets this guy on the ground, and
then other people start to get involved in this cab
driver gets his money back. I mean, Jamie's not a
big guy, but his karate skills are unbeatable.
Speaker 3: As a tenth degree black belt.
Speaker 1: In karate, I know, I wouldn't mess around with him. Yeah.
Speaker 4: In fact, in January two thousand and fourteen, he was
contacted on behalf of Chuck.
Speaker 3: Norris and Gina Norris.
Speaker 4: You see, he was interested in serving as the executive
director for Kickstart Kids, which helps kids build character through karate.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so funny. He sent us all these pictures
with him and Chuck Norris and we're like, hey, do
you know Chuck Norris. He's like, oh, you mean Carlos.
I know, Carlos. We're like my good friend Carlos. Apparently
that's Chuck Norris.
Speaker 3: We don't call him Carlos, but yeah, that's what you mean.
Speaker 1: We're not on first name basis apparently. But but yeah, Like,
through this amazing opportunity with Kickstar Kids, he's been able
to help thousands of kids and they work on building
character and being healthy mentally physically through karate, which is
pretty amazing. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and forty seven Texas schools, so very cool.
Speaker 4: And he also received the Presidential Sports Award for Karate
from President Bush and President Clinton.
Speaker 3: Like this guy's live quituper light.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, super impressive.
Speaker 4: Before we end, we've got to mention somebody else, Like
another one of my new heroes is his mother.
Speaker 1: I know, she was so amazing.
Speaker 4: She was awesome, and it seems like she was such
a strong woman but also like the perfect mom to
help him go through what he had to go through.
Speaker 1: Yeah, her tough love was exactly what he needed.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely helped him to become the man he is today.
Speaker 1: Yeah. All right, well, we want to thank you guys
for joining us today. Make sure you share this podcast
with your family. And friends. Share anyone who you think
could use an uplift and we'll see you guys next time.
Speaker 3: We'll see you then. Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 4: If you have a miracle to share, contact us at
the Miracle files dot com or find us on social media.
Speaker 3: We release new episodes each Monday.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so don't forget Miracle mondays. Subscribe on your favorite
podcast platform and YouTube for amazing video content as well.
Speaker 4: Join us next time as we just discover more of
God's miracles and don't forget to look for his light
in your own lives