Boy in a Box

This book is an autobiographical account of the lessons I learned about life and how I was able to apply them to inspire, motivate and empower others in my own work as a firefighter, as well in my daily life as a husband, a father and a man.

When I was five years-old, my father abandoned my mother and three sisters, beginning a whole new life when he started another family. I never saw him again. This presented me with many challenges growing up, but even this heartache was overshadowed by debilitating injuries I sustained as an 18 year-old call firefighter. On January 13, 1980, while performing a training exercise at a vacant mill, my left hand passed through an induction field of a live 35,000 volt transmission line. Approximately 14,000 volts of electricity surged through my body as I ascended a fire department aerial ladder. While I was fortunate that the current did not instantly kill me, or fall to my death, the injuries to both my hands and right leg were catastrophic, altering the path of my life and shaping me in many ways. At times the pain and severity of my injuries were too much to bear and made me pray to God to take me.

With the love and support of many people, however, I found an inner strength that exists in all of us, and I made it out of the hospital after a harrowing five month journey. Through years of grueling rehabilitation and dozens of operations, I remained determined to fulfill my life-long ambition of becoming a firefighter.
-John Cagno