Each steady and purposeful step Reese Burdette takes in the livestock show ring is quite literally a miracle.
“I mean, it‘s difficult, but everybody has difficulties in the ring,” she says.
FROM THE FLAMES
The challenges for Reese started Memorial Day weekend in 2014 during a visit to her grandparents’ house.
“What we now know is an electrical fire started in the room Reese was in,” says Claire Burdette, Reese‘s mother.
Reese and her sister, Brinkley, were pulled from the burning home by fast-acting family members. Badly burned, Reese was flown to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Maryland.
“First, they told us we‘d be there one to two weeks, and then it turned into one to two months,” Claire says. “We thought: How are we going to do this? How are we going to continue to farm? Then, it turned into 662 days.”
Reese suffered through five cardiac arrests, and she lost her leg in the hospital due to blood-flow issues.
Reese Burdette is a guest on AgriTalk with Chip Flory:
ENTER PANTENE
As Reese faced setbacks, the good days were often overshadowed by the difficult ones. Meanwhile, Claire, her husband, Justin, and Brinkley balanced life and work on their dairy farm just outside of Mercersburg, Pa.
It was that tie to the dairy that helped Reese power through, by way of one special cow named Pantene.
“One of her doctors was an off-the-wall thinker,” Justin says. “He said, ‘Well bring Pantene down here.’”
So, through the streets of Baltimore, the Burdettes hauled Pantene right to the entrance of Johns Hopkins.
“She came to visit me in the hospital when I first learned to stand up,” Reese says. “That really made me want to get home.”
“It was definitely a moment,” Claire remembers. “It also gave the nurses and doctors who were fighting along with us perspective on where Reese came from and what she loved.”
Two months shy of two years, Reese returned home. A family and farm were together again, and they were ready to restart the life they put on pause.
“We know she has something in store for her,” Claire says. “We don’t know how her story is going to unfold, but it will.”
BACK TO THE SHOW RING
Reese has returned to the show ring. The first year a wheelchair followed her just in case. This year as a sophomore in high school, she will be stepping through the sawdust on her own as her body continues to heal.
These small steps by Reese are the road back to a future nearly lost. Her future is now paved with possibilities. At the 2022 Harrisburg All-American show, Reese stood fifth in showmanship out of 140 kids.
Clinton Griffiths is a TV newsman, turned magazine editor, with a passion for good stories. He believes the best life lessons can be found down a dirt road.
