Wilder Vasquez feels blessed because his mother, brother and sister are in heaven.

That’s what he told his catechism class when the teacher asked each student for an example of God’s blessings in their lives.

The class of about 25 middle and high school students clapped in support.

Wilder, 17, survived a mobile home fire in Immokalee in March. He lost his pregnant mother, sister and brother in one night.

After a couple of months at Tampa General Hospital and Shriner’s Cincinnati Hospital in Ohio, Wilder returned home and went back to school in September.

He has to wear a pressure garment on his head, body, arms and hands every day to protect his healing skin.

Wearing it makes him feel like he’s in trouble, like he’s been grounded, Wilder said, so he took the head covering off for his 17th birthday party — even though he wasn’t supposed to; recently, doctors told him to remove the gloves covering the tender healing skin of his hands.

He lives in Immokalee now with his aunt, Juana Vasquez, along with her husband, Pascual, and their three children. Every day, he wakes up at 5 a.m. to get to school by 7:15 a.m., and his afternoons, evenings and weekends are filled with physical and occupational therapy appointments, counseling sessions, catechism classes and church services.

Through it all, Wilder is persistent, determined to get stronger.

Therapy, school and catechism

Wilder’s days are so busy now that if you ask him or his aunt what he’s doing during a particular week, they’re likely to throw up their hands and say, “I don’t know.”

When he returned home in July, Wilder went to therapy five times a week at NCH’s Immokalee Outpatient Rehabilitation center. Since school started, he’s down to three times a week, usually after school.

During one early morning session in September, Wilder started by riding a stationary bike to warm up. Next, physical therapist Sandra Schutz asked him to sit on a matted bench to stretch and lift weights, counting his repetitions out loud.

“He’s made great progress,” she said, as Wilder sat with a bright green fitness ball at his side. She placed his right arm on top of the ball and he reached up with his left arm, stretching in an arc over his head. “In the beginning, all this was really hard, and now it doesn’t hurt. Right?”

“No,” Wilder replied, still stretching.

Next, Schutz put 3-pound weights around his ankles and he lay down for leg lifts. He yawned, tired from getting up at 5 a.m. all week for school. After 10 repetitions on each side, occupational therapist Alex Sizemore took over.

Sizemore has been working with Wilder on writing, range of motion and hand strength. She’s the one who helped him learn to write again with his injured right hand in time to go back to school.

First, Sizemore asked Wilder to stand perpendicular to a wall holding a stretchy, rubber therapy band parallel to the floor; he had to work against the band’s resistance to pull his arm straight down by his side. About halfway through his 15 reps, Wilder decided to take a step away, upping the resistance.

Next, as they sat at a table and worked on fine motor skills, Wilder concentrated intently, singing along to a song on the radio. After a few more exercises he was done with the half-hour session and his aunt whisked him off to school.

After missing the end of last school year, Wilder was eager to get back when he returned home; he even went back a few days earlier than planned. He was a freshman when the fire happened last March, and he is retaking classes he missed.

It’s been hard, he said, because his friends aren’t in his classes anymore.

Around noon on a school day in October, Wilder sat at a cafeteria table with Michelle Kennedy, a physical assistant who helps him get around Immokalee High.

A friend stopped by his table, put her hand on his shoulder and said “Hi” on her way out of the cafeteria. Wilder said “Hello,” and went back to eating his cheeseburger.

The cafeteria’s volume crept up to a roar as more students arrived, forming lines at the counters and finding seats. Wilder ate quickly and then headed back to class; Kennedy followed behind, two backpacks slung over her shoulders.

After school, Wilder usually has therapy and appointments. On Mondays his days are even longer: He goes to catechism in the evenings to study for his confirmation at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church.

His teacher, Elda Hernandez, stood in front of a group of 26 antsy middle and high school students in the Village Oaks Elementary cafeteria during one class in October and asked who did the homework.

Wilder’s hand shot up: “I did,” he said as other students exploded with “me,” “yes” and “I didn’t have time.”

Hernandez calmed them down and started class, leading the students in a discussion about friendship. Then, she asked them to pair off with someone they didn’t know, learn about the person and introduce each other to the class.

After volunteer presenters ran out, Hernandez picked Wilder and his classmate Mario. First Wilder introduced Mario, and then it was Mario’s turn.

“His name is Wilder and he likes to hang out with friends, too,” he said, “and the Immokalee Indians are his favorite football team. ... He likes school, but he’s not that good at driver’s ed.”

After talking about Halloween, an oral quiz on basic Catholic facts and practicing the sign of the cross, Hernandez let the students go home for the night.

“They’re very outspoken,” she said about the class. “With Wilder I have to ask direct questions, but he participates. A lot of his answers will go back to the fire, to his family.”

Wilder walked outside with his cousins to meet his aunt and go home, laughing and fooling around as Vasquez talked for a minute with the education director.

“He’s always laughing,” said Selena, 12, Wilder’s cousin and Vasquez’s daughter, rolling her eyes.

Vasquez gathered the family together — her three children, a niece and Wilder — and steered them toward two cars to head home.

Wilder fits right into their family, Vasquez said, because he was always visiting anyway before the fire.

She had three children before, she said. Now she has four.

The fire and the firefighters

When the firefighters who saved Wilder’s life heard that he was back in Immokalee, they decided they wanted to meet him to offer their support. Wilder talked with them twice and each time he asked them for details about the fire.

A little after 2 in the morning on March 4, 2006, Lt. Curtis Summeralls and firefighter Alex Correa were finishing up fighting a small electrical fire when they got a call about Wilder’s home.

Summeralls and Correa were the first firefighters to arrive, and deputies on the scene confirmed there were people still inside. The fire had claimed too much of the mobile home for the firefighters to go in right away, so they had to attack the flames with a hose.

Once the fire calmed a bit, Correa went into the still-burning mobile home to look for people. He found Wilder and scooped his hands under the younger man’s shoulders to pull him out.

The fire has been classified as arson, and the investigation continues.

Although he has stepped into flames many times, that night was the first time in Correa’s five years of firefighting that he went in to pull someone out.

“Even though it was completely dark in there, I could feel him right through my gloves, through my gear,” said Correa, 38, raising his hands, palms up.

On a weekday afternoon in September, Wilder, his aunt and Gloria Hernandez, a friend, brought him to the fire station to meet the men who saved his life.

He walked into the station slowly, with Gloria at his side, a television camera following behind and a couple of reporters looking on.

“We wanted to meet you, we wanted to let you know that if you need anything we’re here,” said Summeralls, 45, who has been fighting fires in Immokalee for about 18 years.

Wilder asked quiet questions, testing his scattered memories against their clear ones and finding some differences.

“Did you see my mom in there?” Wilder asked.

Summeralls explained that he and another firefighter went in to look for more survivors after Correa rescued Wilder and found his mother, Pascuala, 34; sister Luciana, 15; brother Rodrigo, 6, and another man poisoned by the thick, heavy smoke.

“Did you hear my mom scream?” he asked.

“No,” Correa said. “… I don’t know if it would give you any comfort, but they died of smoke.”

Wilder paused, pursed his lips and nodded.

Then he pressed Correa for the second time about where he was when they found him. In the hallway? Near the bedroom where his mom was sleeping?

Yes, Correa said, he was in the hallway.

“I know you were trying to get to your family,” Summeralls said. “I respect what you were trying to do.”

“Thank you,” Wilder said, and a few minutes later Summeralls stepped forward and hugged him.

Then, Wilder and Correa re-enacted their meeting in Spanish in front of a firetruck for a video camera. After talking for a few minutes, the reporter asked Correa to give Wilder a hug.

The firefighter, more than 6 feet tall and broad-shouldered, folded Wilder into his arms, his hand resting tenderly on the younger man’s head.

A birthday party and wishes

On Oct. 22, 1990, Wilder’s mom gave birth to him at NCH North Naples Hospital. This year was the first birthday he celebrated without her.

Hernandez, a social worker, Immokalee community leader and Wilder’s friend, knew it would be a tough birthday for Wilder, so she decided to throw him a big party.

On the Saturday before Wilder’s birthday, a couple dozen adults carried huge pots of chicken, rice and molé into the party room at Immokalee Community Park. Meanwhile, packs of kids from babies to teenagers milled around decorating and causing chaos.

Wilder arrived with Hernandez and three huge piñatas. The first people he said hello to were two Immokalee firefighters who stopped in to wish him a happy birthday.

Everyone sat down to dig into their lunch and Wilder surveyed the commotion from the head of a table, leaning back on the back two legs of his chair. It was the first day he didn’t wear the nylon covering on his head, and being without it made him feel free, he said.

When it came time for cake, Hernandez lit 17 candles and led the group in “Happy Birthday.” Wilder squeezed his eyes tightly shut, and wished before blowing out the candles. Everybody clapped and cheered, and the kids rushed in for cake.

Later in the afternoon, Wilder said he wished for a new television to replace the broken one at home, and also thought of his mother, sister and brother and wished they could come back to life.

While aunts and cousins filled the piñatas with candy, Wilder held his year-old neighbor, Jasmine Uriostegui, and played with her, provoking big baby smiles. Her mom, Clara Abundez, and brother, Wilder’s friend, Edmin Abundez, watched and laughed, too.

Edmin, 13, and Wilder hang out often, and Wilder visits their home and plays with Jasmine, Clara Abundez said.

The other day Edmin was riding his bike and Wilder wanted to ride, too, Edmin said.

Although he’s not quite up for bicycling yet, Wilder looks forward to doing things like riding bikes and driving. When he’s ready, there will be money from an insurance settlement reached after the fire for him to buy his first car, a college education and, someday, a house.

For now, though, he’s concentrating on the present.

And back at the birthday party, that meant that it was piñata time.

A Superman cake piñata hung from a nail in the center of an outdoor pavilion and Wilder’s cousin, Enrique, held on to a rope to raise and lower it. Wilder got the first whack, and then a succession of kids and adults got their chance to smack first that one, and then another.

The crowd’s excitement increased as each person took a turn, and by the time Wilder stepped up to finish off a Winnie the Pooh piñata, they shouted and squealed, egging him on.

He swung like a baseball player hitting a home run, thump, thump, thump, again and again, and when Pooh’s body finally broke and the candies poured out, the crowd roared and the kids scurried in.

Wilder was left standing in the center of a sea of squatting, kneeling children, holding the stick and laughing, mouth open and shoulders shaking.

It was the biggest birthday party he’s ever had.