LAFD Captain Burned in Explosion Uses Fishing for Healing

Two years after being critically burned in an explosion, Los Angeles Fire Capt. Victor Aguirre has turned to fishing to recover from his injuries.

Aguirre was one of a dozen firefighters injured in the May 2020 explosion at a vaping business in downtown Los Angeles.

"I went from fourth-degree burns, which is your bones being burned, to second- and first-degree burns throughout my body," Aguirre  told CBS Los Angeles.  "I've had 31 surgeries."

He returned to the fire department working at the dispatch center, but as the healing continued he turned to fishing.

"I went through a process where I thought I was going to lose both hands," Aguirre told the television station. "So going from not having hands, potentially not having hands, to going fishing, that's something amazing."

A group designed a one-of-a kind fishing reel to help Aguirre fish.

"We took an existing reel, and we made a special knob," David Nilsen with Accurate Fishing said. "We made something where Vic can get his hand, his left hand, in there and kind of cradle the reel."