[piano intro] - Hello, I'm Nido Qubein.

Welcome to "Side By Side."

My guest today suffered third-degree burns over 90% of his body, and he was only 13 years old.

Doctors told him that he had a 1% chance of survival, but he survived.

He went through two years of rehabilitation and more than 130 surgeries over a decade.

He played lacrosse in college, and coached lacrosse in college too.

He now travels the globe sharing his inspirational message of how adversity can lead to abundance.

Today, you'll meet Connor McKemey.

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- [Female Announcer] Here's to those that rise and shine, to friendly faces doing more than their part, and to those who still enjoy the little things.

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[upbeat music] [light upbeat music] ♪ - Connor, you are a walking miracle.

What has happened to you in life would have just absolutely destroyed so many people, but you instead had the right support from your family and your friends and medical community.

And, today, you are a thriving, successful young man speaking about your experiences, telling audiences how one can travel from adversity to abundance.

You were 13 years old when your body was burned.

90% of your body burned.

What were you doing, and where were you?

- So I was a typical middle school kid at the time.

I was playing football, basketball, lacrosse.

And I also had an interest in girls.

And I was like, "Hey, what better way to impress someone than have a nice fire outside and roast some marshmallows, listen to some great music."

- [Nido] This is at your house.

- This is at my house.

We have a little fire pit back there.

You can sit out under the stars, you know, kind of a romantic thing as a little kid.

And I got carried away when I was making the fire.

There was a gasoline tank close by that was heating up.

And at some point, between the mixture of the flames, the spark, and the gas, there was an explosion.

And, basically, I heard a loud bang and immediately could just see this red-orange glow around me.

Before I know it, I hear my mom screaming and coming out the window, pushing me down.

And then, thankfully, next door, we had a volunteer firefighter who heard the explosion as well.

- Your body was burning.

- Burning, I mean, it be like sitting in the room right now with your eyes closed, you can see the light still.

So I knew I could see this red-orange glow, and I was just trying anything I could to get the flames off me.

And before I knew it, I was pushed to the ground and patted out and towels wrapped around me.

And, really, the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was looking down at my hands and just seeing the skin peeled back and black and, you know, burnt, charcoaled skin.

And the remnants of my shirt was completely gone.

And I just knew at that moment things were definitely not good, definitely not good.

- Wow, and your mom came right through a window.

She came right through the glass?

- Yeah, she was on the first floor of the house and heard the explosion.

And I think, immediately, when she turned, she saw me engulfed in flame.

And that mother's instinct came flying out the window.

And her first reaction was just to try to push me to the ground and pat me out.

And so I think she was the one who ultimately tackled me, which is honestly quite impressive, because, even at the time, I was still an awfully big kid and my mom is more on the petite side.

And she pushed me to the ground and started trying to just pat me out with her own hands.

And she actually ended up getting burns on the inside of her arms and her legs.

And, immediately, they were able to tell what happened, because my burns are reactionary from an explosion, everything is constricted, where hers, you could tell were trying to put out a flame.

And so both of us were put on the back of stretchers and wheeled in the back of the ambulance.

And before we knew it, we were airlifted to Augusta, Georgia and put into intensive care.

- And where were you at the time?

Where did you live?

- I lived in Fort Mill, South Carolina just outside of Charlotte.

- And the doctors told your parents that your chance of survival is 1%?

- Yeah, 1%.

So they were really just trying to keep me alive long enough for my dad, who, at the time, had spent eight months in in Iraq, to come home for the Christmas holidays.

And so they actually notified him while he was on the plane and they rerouted it to Atlanta so he could drive up to the hospital.

And, again, their main goal was just to keep me live along just so he could see me again, you know, 'cause it hadn't been, you know, eight, nine months.

And, thankfully, there was a lot of prayers and a lot of support.

My entire family from both sides, my mom and dad, drove from all over, different parts of the country to Augusta, Georgia.

And they sat there and they prayed.

And then little miracle started to happen.

They realized that my lungs didn't take damage.

The internal organs, which, usually, at that severe of a burn, are incredibly affective.

They were fine.

- And 120, 130 surgeries later over the span of a decade, that's what you had to go through?

- I think I had nearly 70 to 80 surgeries before I left the hospital originally.

And that was in about a five to six month window.

- The surgeries were to do what?

- Various different skin grafts, because, again, with 90% burn and such large amounts being third-degree, you had to replace all of that skin.

So some of it is one-to-one skin grafts, which you are essentially taking a piece and replacing a piece.

And if you did that to try to cover somebody's whole body, it would take years.

Thankfully, there is incredible technology out there now where, for my arms and my legs, they actually grew the synthetic skin in a lab up in Boston.

And so they were able to do that while doing other surgeries and then they could come down and cover a lot larger surface area.

And so a stay that should have taken a year, maybe two years, I was able to walk out of that hospital in six, seven months due to incredible care, incredible technology that had just been available, and a lot of great fortune, a lot of great fortune.

Because, when you're going through skin grafts, more often than not, you won't have a high rate so you have to maybe do it one or two or three times.

I was fortunate where, if they did a skin graft, 70, 80, 90% of it took and they didn't have to do anything.

- And did they do on your face as well?

- On my face, my hands.

Pretty much the only place that didn't get burned is where you'd be wearing swim trunks or boxers.

I actually even have outlines of like pockets.

And on my foot you could tell I was wearing sandals because I have a perfect line of where a flip flop would've been.

But other than that, yeah, I mean, they were replacing almost everything.

- Tell me how you felt through all of that.

You were 13 years of age, you were quite aware of what's happened, and you must have gone through a tremendous amount of emotional turmoil, your mom and dad too and your friends and your family.

But you personally, I wanna understand how does a 13 year old going through all of this turns out to be the fine young man that you are today?

Where did you find your strength?

What were some of the feelings that you had in the hospital?

Did you have hope that everything was gonna work out?

Did you worry about, "What if this doesn't work out?

What if I die?

What if these doctors are right about 1% survival?"

- So I think, for me, and my initial reaction was, "Why did this happen to me?"

So I was in a medically-induced coma for about two months while they did a large majority of the surgeries.

So by the time they woke me up, I was going to be fine.

The quality of life was what was unsure.

And so originally they told me, "You're not going to walk.

You're probably going to have to have some kind of assistance for the rest of your life," due to my hands being burned the way they were.

- They told you that while you were 13?

- While I was 13 years old.

- And what did you do?

Did you sit there and cry?

Did you get depressed?

- Yeah, for about a week or two, I definitely didn't have many lights on in the room.

I was upset all the time, and it was very difficult for me to kind of see any sort of hope.

But, eventually, I got to a point where I realized feeling that way and thinking that way was never going to get me out of that situation.

So the more I felt sorry for myself, the more I saw myself going into a place where I wasn't going to have a life anymore.

I wasn't going to be, you know, a normal kid.

And I think part of what helped me was being a naive teenager at the time, thinking like, "Well, I survived this.

I think I can do a little bit more."

And I just started trying to focus on, "All right, what can I do each day to just get a little bit better?"

You know, I didn't ever imagine I was gonna get back to playing sports again or anything else like that, but I wanted to get out of the hospital bed.

I wanted to go and be back with my friends again.

And so I was like, "What can I do?"

- Were you playing lacrosse at that time as a 13 year old?

- Yeah, at a 13 year old, I was arguably one of the best kids in the state playing on all the premier teams.

And, at the time you were still able to be recruited in middle school back then.

So I was one of the top kids in the state of North Carolina.

And so I really felt like I was going to go on and play Division I lacrosse.

- But you did, and went on to- - And I did.

- play Division I lacrosse, and your body cooperated.

- Yeah, and so originally they thought, because of the burns on my feet and how much, I ended up losing, I think, 40 or 50 pounds in the hospital, because you're not moving anymore.

Your body's healing.

So I was about 6'1", 6'2", and 135 pounds.

And part of it was I needed to get weight on, I needed to get muscle back.

And so I was starting to eat a lot.

But once I stood up for the first time, I felt this incredible amount of pain, almost like standing on a thousand pieces of rocks in your shoes.

And it was concerning to me, 'cause I was like, "I don't know how I'm gonna be able to withstand this day in and day out," you know?

And it was just standing, not walking or anything else like that.

But I just focused on just trying to take one step, "Just take one step and see if you can do it."

And by doing that, I realized I could handle that pain.

And so then I took another step.

And week after week, I just tried to take a little bit more steps than I did the day before.

And before I knew it, I was walking up and down the hall.

And I could handle it and I could see my body getting stronger and stronger.

And, eventually, that led to, when I got out of the hospital, to running again.

And the only way I actually learned how to run was I was walking pretty quickly, as quickly as I could, and I was actually having a catch with my older brother.

And he threw a pass that was a little outside of my range and I had to move a little quick for it.

And I ended up feeling like I was falling, but I caught myself.

I caught myself with my other foot.

And I was like, "Oh my goodness, that's running."

And I was doing this little like fall-run-jog type thing.

I don't know.

I was probably moving like two miles an hour, but I was like, "Oh my goodness, that's like the motion of running."

And it was just a controlled fall over and over again.

And it gave me hope.

And so, for me, all I tried to do was, I had, you know, this goal of, I just wanted to get back to normal life.

I wanted to be with my friends and feel that kind of normalcy.

- And by then you were how old?

- [Connor] About 14, 14 or 15 years old.

- That's remarkable, remarkable that a 13, 14 year old can go through all this tremendous amount of adversity with pain.

I'm sure there was pain connected to all that.

And yet, you were absolutely determined.

You had grit, that "I'm gonna, by golly, I'm gonna play lacrosse.

I'm gonna do it one step at a time."

And you not only survived, but you did exceptionally well and played DI lacrosse.

And tell me about your mom and your dad.

What is the journey they went through?

- So I think, for them, it was so difficult seeing your kid at such a low.

And all they wanted for when I woke up out of the medically-induced coma was to just feel like I had some sort of hope that I could have a normal life again.

So they fought so hard to keep my hands, to keep my feet, because, normally, those are the extremities that, in a severe burn, they amputate right away because they get infections, you know, and the skin, it's harder to heal there.

But they were like, you know, they wanted me to see that I still had feet, I still had hands, even though I was missing a finger or two just so I had some sort of hope.

And I think they let me feel sorry for myself, you know, at the beginning.

But they were also my biggest advocates to go out and try things, push yourself and see where you can go.

And I know both my parents are incredible role models for me and my two brothers and are some of the most selfless people I've ever been around.

And I know without their care and support and allowing me to push myself to points where I had to go back in the hospital.

You know, by trying to play sports again, I learned what my body could and couldn't take.

And a lot of this was uncharted territory because nobody that had been burned like I had went out and played sports again.

So even the doctors didn't know what was gonna happen.

They basically said I was gonna fall apart at the seams first time I got hit or first time I fell.

And my parents could've easily been like, "No, don't do it.

We don't need to spend more time in the hospital."

But they let me go.

They let me fail.

They let me try.

And they also took me to the hospital when I tore parts of my skin or I broke my toes or whatever happened.

They were right there.

It probably annoyed them a little bit near the end, but again, they were always been my biggest supporters.

And I know, without that, in them allowing me to have that hope to get back to the life that I wanted, I would've never had the life that I have now, for sure.

- So, Connor, how old are you now?

- I actually just turned 27.

- 27 and you're very well spoken.

You're a articulate communicator at age 27.

You're an inspiration to us all for all this pain you've gone through.

And you had the determination that you'll transcend all that.

You'll find a better day in the next day or two.

Were the doctors then shocked that the 1% chance of survival prediction was so wrong?

- I think for, of them, they always try to err on realism instead of hope, because they don't want to give anybody false hope, especially in a time, when my accident took place, which was around the holiday season, I think for them, they saw something that was very severe.

And until they get through 48 hours, a week, two weeks, they don't really know where things are gonna go.

And even if you aren't as bad critically inside, you still are at an incredibly high risk for infection.

There's so many other medical things that can go wrong that could potentially cut your journey short.

And so, for them, they became a great tool where, as I started to go out and try these new things, they would come back open arms when, "Hey, I need to get another graft," or, "Hey, I tore this," or, "Hey, I did this."

And, for them, it helped, honestly, further the medical advances in the burn community, because now they have a great example of what some of these new surgeries can do, what some of these special grafts can do, and what they can withstand.

And so I got to be a little bit of a test dummy.

And I'm okay with that, because, again, I know, going forward, there's kids that will have, unfortunately, go through the same things that I went through.

And now they have an example of, "Hey, I can go have a normal life.

I can go live a normal life.

I can go do all the things I wanna do."

And that was not easy.

It wasn't something that it's just gonna be handed to you.

You definitely have to work for it.

And you have to deal with a lot of pain and a lot of negativity, day in and day out.

But, for me, I just knew if I make these things very, very small, very, very simple, one step at a time, one day at a time, and just try to get a little bit better, a little bit better, a little bitt better, I knew, eventually, I'd get to where I wanted to go.

- You know, that's a gift that you have, because most people do not have that kind of determination and tenacity through life.

I mean, we can hardly have, you know, a weight loss program that lasts for, you know, people make resolutions January 1, and by February 1, the majority sort of give up on it.

Tell me this, that girl you were trying to impress, do you know her still today?

- We're definitely not in as much contact now, but she was always a great friend and somebody that actually came and visited me in the hospital a few times.

And we were really close through high school and all of that and somebody that, still, every now and again, I could check in on.

And she has an incredible life.

She's doing really well.

- So you started a company called Mac Mentality.

What does that mean, and where does the Mac come from?

Does it come from your last name?

- Yeah, so it comes from my last name.

McKemey gets mispronounced a lot of times.

And so I've had coaches in the past, Coach Torpey, one of them refer to me as just C Mac.

Easier, he doesn't mess it up.

And so C Mac has been kind of this nickname I've had for the last six, seven years.

And when I decided to start this company and I thought about the three core pillars of what I preach, what I believe in, the M-A-C stood out to me, and it was motivation, attitude, and courage.

And I felt those three things together really defined who I was and the mission that I was trying to pursue.

And motivation in its simplest form is the driving force behind any action.

Positive or negative, it is the driving force behind any action.

And attitude is our feeling or opinion about that action, or anything.

Again, you can be positive or you can be negative about it, but that is your attitude.

But, for me, the most important thing and the most important letter in the whole thing was C, was courage, because I know without anything I experienced, if I didn't have the courage to try, knowing that there's fear and adversity out there in front of me and I didn't try to withstand it, I didn't try to pursue it and get through it, I would've never had any opportunities that I had.

I would've never gotten out of the hospital.

I probably would've never learned to walk or run again because I had to know that all these things are out there, but I have to try, I have to try and see what would happen.

And courage, now more than ever, is the most important thing that people should have, because, without it, we are often lost at times.

- Yeah.

So what does Mac Mentality do?

- So Mac Mentality is me using the lens or perspective that I've gained through my experiences to help try to have a conversation with people to understand, we actually all have a lot of these tools inside of us to have a fulfilling life, to have a successful life.

But, oftentimes, we get caught up in the negative stuff going on, the instant gratification of life and we forget what it means to put in the work, put in the time.

And also to just believe and have hope.

You know, there are so many things out there that we can't control.

And what I try to focus on is the things that we can, the things that we, day in and day out, can control that eventually will help us deal with the uncontrollable.

- Mm-hmm.

You're a remarkable young man, Connor.

You have been through so much difficulty in your life, and yet, you rose to the top of the mountain with faithful courage.

You're determined that, "I'm not gonna let those things, you know, mess up the rest of my life.

I have a long life ahead of me.

And I wanna prepare myself to meet the challenges and to excel and be extraordinary."

And now, through Mac Mentality, you're speaking and coaching other people about those elements that can make their life more impactful and more influencing.

Have you written a book?

- So, actually, a few weeks ago, I just partnered up with a company to put together a great book that will hopefully be out in 10 months.

It is something I've really wanted to do for a long time, all the collection of stories, trials, and tribulations I've gone through.

And almost it's like the origin story of Connor McKinney or the Mac Mentality.

It's giving everybody an inside glimpse of who I was, what I went through, and the experiences that I ultimately learned from that helped me now got to the stage that I am speaking and sharing this message.

And so, to me, that's something I knew was very important.

And I'm looking forward to seeing it come through, like I said, in 10 months.

- Looking forward, what is it you wanna do?

Of course speaking and writing, and we look forward 10 years, what does Connor wanna be in 10 years?

- I'd say, in 10 years, hopefully still sharing a positive and productive message.

Again, for me, all I look at is just trying to have an impact on one person's life at a time, right?

Similar to the thought process of just taking one step at a time, it's like, if I can make a difference in just one person's day.

And if we did that for 10 years and we changed one person's life every single day, that's a lot of lives we touched.

It's a lot of lives.

And at the end of the day, that is what fulfills me.

That's what brings me joy is hopefully taking somebody who's in a dark place, who's worried or fearful about the future and just showing that, hey, you have the tools, you have the ability to deal with that.

And not only deal with that, but create the future that you want to see.

And so, in 10 years from now, if I am still able to preach that message and it still touches lives the same way, I'd be incredibly happy.

- That's beautiful.

Do you find yourself sometimes questioning what happened or what is or what could be?

Or does it get you down at times?

Or are you always up and determined and positive and courageous and all of these things?

- [laughs] I definitely have, you know, like we all do, have down days and things things like that.

But one thing I don't question is what happened to me, because I think there have been so many constant reminders throughout my life, like I said, things that I can't control or explain that have just proven to me or shown to me that I'm on the right path, that I'm going down the right direction.

And I think, for a long time, I wanted to change what happened to me.

And now, I fully embrace who I am, because I know this is the version of me that I'm supposed to be.

- God wants to bless you because of who you are and what you are doing.

It's a remarkable story, Connor McKemey, and you're touching the lives of many.

And they'll become better because they've crossed your path.

I thank you for being with me today on "Side By Side."

I wish you nothing but the best always, my friend.

- Thank you so much.

- [Male Announcer] Funding for "Side By Side" with Nido Qubein is made possible by.

- [Female Announcer] Here's to those that rise and shine, to friendly faces doing more than their part, and to those who still enjoy the little things.

You make it feel like home.

Ashley HomeStore, this is home.

- [Female Announcer] For over 60 years, the everyday leaders at the Budd Group have been committed to providing smart, customized facility solutions to our clients and caring for the communities we serve.

[soft music] - [Male Announcer] Coca-Cola Consolidated is honored to make and serve 300 brands and flavors locally thanks to our teammates.

We are Coca-Cola Consolidated, your local bottler.

[upbeat music]