Danville City Councilman Lee Vogler was doused and set on fire on July 30. On October 21, just hours after being released from the burn center in Chapel Hill, NC, he was back seated among fellow councilmembers.
“I’ve missed being around the guys on Council, and I love serving this city. So having an opportunity to do that on the very day I got back—there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”
“God is everything,” Vogler has repeatedly said since his release.
Sixty percent of his body was burned, and at one point he suffered severe infections in multiple parts of his body.
In an interview with WSET ABC 13, Vogler said he remembers the day of the incident. He recalls getting into the helicopter and feeling it lift. That’s where his memories stopped—for nearly a month.
Vogler describes the first several weeks in the hospital as being “basically asleep” and “like a dream state.” Meanwhile, he said there were times when the infections were so severe that his family was warned he might not survive the night.
He admitted there was a point when he didn’t expect to make it and told his wife as much. But after several weeks at UNC Health Burn Center, he began to recover.
“Once I woke up, it was just day by day, little by little,” Vogler said, describing the moment he turned a corner. “First of all, I feel blessed to be here at all—and to be here about six months earlier than they thought I would be. That’s God,” he said at the October 21 meeting.
Before the attack, Vogler was known as the “Comeback Kid,” a nickname tied to Danville’s label as the “Comeback City.”
“Danville’s a comeback city, and now I am without a doubt the comeback kid. I’ll take that—because it was driving me too. I’d see all the comments, people saying, ‘Lee, you’re the comeback kid.’ And I’m like, that’s right.”
Although Vogler acknowledges there’s still a long road ahead, he has been attending meetings and events. He said he’s back to playing one-on-one basketball with his son and picking up his daughter. He’s also working toward returning to softball and coaching baseball.
In late November, Vogler chose to return to Showcase magazine where the incident occurred for the WSET interview, and he posted:
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