Pétur does not remember anything from the accident, or even months prior to when the accident took place. What his colleagues told him is all he can recall.
“Without Kerecis, I would probably not be alive today”
Pétur
Pétur was airlifted to the hospital in Reykjavik after the accident. About half of his body was burned and he had internal injuries. For 60 days, he was on and off the ventilator and his operations lasted up to six to eight hours. Pétur was in a coma for about 100 days after the accident. “Later the doctors told me, they never thought I would survive,” Sigurlín recalled. “I think that without Kerecis, I would probably not be alive today.”
“When you wake up looking like that, you may not have much will to live to begin with. You only look at what is wrong, not what can be improved. It was a complete black night to begin with,” said Pétur. Gradually his optimism grew. “There was the big step in March when I could eat my first soup, broccoli soup, the best food I’ve had,” he said.
Pétur’s daughter lives in Reykjavík, where Pétur went through rehabilitation. A few days after the accident, she had a son, Róbert Birnir, who Pétur saw for the first time after he came back from his coma. Ever since, their relationship has been very close. “He has been a good rehabilitation, just playing with him and doing whatever I can.”
Pétur has long been a powerful skier and a member of the trumpet band of the Ísafjörður Music School. “It’s just the order of the day to blow the trumpet. It is a part of the rehabilitation, but I do not think it’s fun for others to listen to a trumpet training program now, so I only play when I’m home alone. It is just the poor dog who must endure it.”
The dog Tryggur does not seem to mind it, and he takes an active part in rehabilitation by dragging Pétur out for a walk in all weather. Even though nearly 50 percent of his body was burned, Pétur points out that the biggest burn was in the shirt area, up to the neck and down to the wrists, and therefore not visible in his day-to-day life.
“My goal now is to build up strength to be able to go cross-country skiing during the winter and finish my early Fossavatnsganga, a 25 km ski marathon.”
Pétur
The day Pétur was discharged after six months at the hospital, his first destination was the Kerecis office in Reykjavik, where he and his wife Sigurlín shared his story. It was a very touching account of resilience and survival and showcased the impact that Kerecis can have on the trajectory of people’s lives.
Pétur was also featured in a series called Now Go Build on Prime Video by Amazon. In this series, Werner Vogels, chief technology officer and vice president of Amazon, highlights startups and innovators around the world who are solving the toughest problems our planet faces. Vogels met with Kerecis founder and CEO, Fertram Sigurjonsson, in our manufacturing facility in Ísafjörður. See the story here.
