It happened after three lads knocked on Keith's door that fateful day in April 1989 and invited him to hang out with them.

As Keith left his Smithfield home in Wrexham and walked off with the lads, he had no idea what was in store for him.

As Keith begins to tell what happened next, he talks a little faster and it is obvious from his expressions the memory is still vivid, even after 19 years.

"We were messing about in the old cattle market then they said 'let's go down to the log yard'."

In the log yard, Keith sat on a log opposite two of the lads and the third lad had gone somewhere but he thought nothing of it.

"Within five minutes, I felt something on the back of my head," he says with disbelief still evident.

One of the boys was tipping petrol over Keith, from a petrol can. As Keith turned around to look over his left shoulder, he says he heard a "whoosh" noise and he was instantly up in flames.

"I shouted to them to help me and they ran off. I was rolling around – I had my school uniform still on. If I had undone my jacket and taken it off it would not have been so bad but the zip snapped on it and I could not get it off."

He says he laid down and thought 'this is it'. "My whole body was on fire ... my fingers were melting ... then I thought 'just get up'."
Somehow he managed to get up and the only way out was over a 16-feet high wall which amazingly, he jumped and pulled himself up on, before falling down the other side. He remembers a woman screaming at him to get his coat off then a car pulled up near him.

"It was Mason Bird who saved me," says Keith, his respect for the man still great after 19 years. Mason had been driving by and saw Keith on fire so he stopped, wrapped him up in a car seat cover and doused the flames, says Keith.

With horn blasting and lights flashing, Mason kept Keith talking as he raced him to hospital then carried him inside and gently placed him on a bed.

Keith says much to the surprise of the medical staff, he was still talking and able to tell them how to contact his mother. "I was just black and in no pain as it burnt all the nerve ends."

He says he had no idea how seriously injured he was.
"Mum came in, looked at me and collapsed. I screamed, and woke up three months later in Alder Hey Children's Hospital in Liverpool."
When he was transferred by ambulance from Wrexham to Alder Hey, Keith says he had to be resuscitated.

"With my burns, I should never have survived as they were to 72 percent of my body," says Keith, glancing at his deformed hand.

After the malicious attack, he says the only skin he had left was on his legs but the doctors had to take it off his legs to replace the burnt skin on other parts of his body.

As a result, he says he did not walk for nearly two years and he spent six months in a wheelchair when he first got home from hospital.

Keith spent 12 months in Alder Hey Children's Hospital, Liverpool, recovering from his ordeal. He has had 72 operations, 148 skin grafts and lost nearly all the fingers on his left hand, not to mention the dressings.

"It was five hours a day of pure pain because every day they had to change your dressing. The pain of that was unbelievable," says Keith quietly.

His mum stayed with him at the hospital for the entire year and his father drove from Wrexham to Liverpool regularly to visit.
Keith says his middle brother was only 17 at the time and all of his wages went towards helping the family instead of spending it going out with his mates.

Keith is still very close to his brother and says he will never forget his kindness. The horrific attack affected everybody in his family and many of his friends, says Keith but their incredible support is what kept him going. "You don't realise how important family and friends are until something happens, that's why you should all stick together."

At the hospital, his dad who had been a paramedic in the RAF, was taught to change the dressings so he could do it when Keith finally went home.

It must have been hard for his dad to do it knowing the pain it caused his son, Keith says: "Dad was very brave and so was my Mum. They had to be – for me."

Now 34-years-old, Keith is happily married to Karen and he has four children, which is a far cry from when he was recovering from the burns at 15 and worried about ever getting a girlfriend.

As for children and teenagers playing with fire, such as those who took part in the recent stunt in Chirk where they set fire to one of their friends and put the footage on YouTube, Keith says: "Don't even get in that situation.

"It's not only you who will suffer, it's everyone else too.

"They don't realise if they are playing with fire, what can happen to them. Something can go wrong as quick as that.

"They might think it's fun and start messing about with their friends and they may not realise what's ahead of them once it does happen."

Keith says quietly: "It's best to walk away. It's too late once it's happened."

The contact number for Keith's mobile car cleaning service is 0752 1937767.