'I said, you know, now’s a good time to get out.'

Kurt Zeller said there is still some pain and discomfort, but he's healing more every day. (Harrison Thorp photo)

EAST LEBANON - Kurt Zeller was already on his way out the Pit Viper door when fumes from atomizing transmission fluid filled his cab with acrid smoke.

“I couldn’t breathe, so I opened the door,” he said on Monday.

Trouble is when he was gulping in some air so was gaseous transmission fluid, resulting in an intense fireball that engulfed the Pit Viper, 4X4 Proving Grounds signature mud truck he was driving through thick clay mud at a Livermore Falls mud track.

It only lasted a second, but a second was enough.

“When I opened the door it got a fresh gulp of air,” Zeller said. “I saw the flash, was looking around; there were a couple of things still smoldering in the cab. Then, I said, you know, now’s a good time to get out.

“I had already popped my belt. I used my foot to hold the door open. I just bailed out into two and a half or three foot of mud. And then I proceeded to turtle, crawl my way out.”

The frightening incident occurred June 7 at a Livermore Falls mud track.

Excruciating pain was intense and immediate, he said.

Image of fireball taken from video shot June 7 at Livermore Falls track. (Courtesy images)

But what’s ironic, he said, is looking back, if you had told him early that Saturday that he was going to get injured in a rollover in the mud he would’ve agreed to the possibility.

“But that I was going to get burned in a fire? No way,” he said.

The flash just lasted one second, but it will take a long, long time before Zeller is fully recovered.

To help heal his upper right arm, where burns were the worst, doctors grafted two two- by eight-inch layers of skin taken from his right leg.

In all, he received second-degree burns to 20-25 percent of his body, with both legs from knees down to ankles, his left arm where he received second-degree burns and the third-degree burns to his upper right arm.

He was first rushed to Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston, then later transferred to Maine Medical Center in Portland.

Moments before the fireball.

On Monday Zeller said his right leg where they grafted skin for his arm is doing great, and even his upper right arm is feeling better. Thankfully, the flame never reached his hands, he said.

He thinks having the mud to plunge his burned arms and legs into immediately after the flash fire could’ve helped. Luckily, no infections ever developed.

As the owner of 4X4 Proving Grounds of Lebanon, where mud truck events proving endurance and off-road capability are popular attractions and safety is a major concern, Zeller said his own brush with disaster has spawned a new safety campaign he’ll be introducing next year.

He said the fire that engulfed him, which was caused when the torque converter overheated and popped a transmission fluid line, is such a freak event that there may be little that can be done as a precautionary measure.

Still he said next year drivers of some of the highly modified classes will be required to don fire suits. He said they already have to wear seat belts and helmets.

He said he’s going to be doing a public service announcement urging fire suits using pictures from his Pit Viper erupting into flames and of him.

“And I’ll say, ‘yeah, it’s me, I’m the dumbass that got burned,’” he quipped.

He said for those that would be required to wear firesuits like highly modified tractor classes 6 and 7, he’d probably let them run the first time with a “suggestion” that they use one the next or they wouldn’t  be able to run.

Zeller said the accident won’t change his love for the sport. He said it won’t be too long before once again he’ll be driving the Pit Viper, which took only a few hours to fix after the incident at the Livermore Falls track.

He’s also working on planning for 4X4 Proving Ground’s Labor Day campout weekend and the addition of mud drags on an adjoining property as soon as the permitting process moves forward and construction can begin.