For seven years I have owned a small café in the Montrose area of Houston. In all seven years neither a patron nor an employee had been injured, that is until a few nights ago. It was Valentine’s Day weekend and we’d been busier than usual – I found myself having to work both in the front of the house as well as in the kitchen. It’s my place and who better to pull double duty than myself? Everything was going well until we were hit with a dinner rush out of the blue. I stayed in the kitchen cooking as the orders poured in. For a split second I forgot about the hot handle of a pan and grabbed it with my bare hand, oh my goodness was that a mistake.

Once the heat hit my nerves I dropped the pan and hot olive oil sprayed all over my line cook’s ankle and foot. I sent for my hostess to go online and find the nearest Montrose Emergency Room because the thought of spending all night stuck in the medical center didn’t sound appealing at all. She searched for Montrose Emergency Room and found an Elite Care 24 Hour emergency room, just a few miles down the road from my café. One of my servers drove us to the Montrose Emergency Room and I was treated for second degree burns on my left hand, while my line cook was treated for first degree burns. We were back at the restaurant in time to finish the dinner services and close up.