Around the world for Ryan

From Thailand and Russia to South Africa and Croatia, the five-member Hirn family each carried a backpack with everything they needed for a trip around the world. The sixth backpack was most important — it represented the son who couldn’t be there.

“He would love this trip around the world with his brothers,” said Dawn Hirn of her son Ryan, who died at 7 years old in a car crash that left Dawn, her husband Ron and son Tyler badly burned.

After Ryan’s death, Dawn said her family moved forward on autopilot for nearly a decade. They moved from Texas to Lake Martin, where Dawn home-schooled Tyler and his younger brothers, Trenton and Colton.

“We had lost control, losing a child. And we needed to gain some control back in our life. So it was kind of a subconscious need to helicopter, to keep our little guys safe because we didn’t do that for one of our children,” Dawn said.

It was Tyler’s desire to return to public school for high school that changed things. The Hirns decided to move to Mountain Brook in 2013, but they also recalled a dream from before the children were born. Ron and Dawn had both traveled much of the world and had promised themselves to do the same with their kids.

As they woke up from their “stupor,” as Dawn described it, they realized the best time for a big family trip was before Tyler returned to the public school schedule. They planned a seven-month trip circling the globe and Dawn, a longtime artist, felt her creativity returning to her. She wanted to capture the whole experience on video, both the highs and the lows.

One trip to Los Angeles later, Dawn had a videographer prepared to accompany them on the journey through over 30 countries.

The Hirns took off, videographer in tow, in November 2013. They brought with them a small Pokemon backpack – a seventh birthday gift for Ryan, only 10 days before the car crash. It would represent his presence on the trip around the world. He would have been 19 years old.

They traveled westward around the world, starting with Japan. They encountered language, culture and transportation barriers, but they discovered a lot of similarities no matter where they traveled.

“I think the kids got an appreciation of what’s out there,” Ron said. “There are differences, but more than the differences there are a lot of similarities. The similarities I think is what draws it all together. Everywhere you go there’s malls and there’s kids that want ice cream.”

Ron and Tyler agreed that it was awkward at first to have a stranger traveling with them and pointing a camera at them, but everyone got along well and it became easier.

The trip took them to some recognizable places, and some they never expected. They stayed in hostels, except for two months renting a camper to travel across Europe, but Dawn said the family never felt unsafe. The family rode elephants, visited monuments, saw St. Petersburg, Russia, in a fresh layer of snow and visited classrooms in different countries to talk to the local kids.

Ron said his favorite place was Angkor Wat, which was awe-inspiring to see in person. Dawn, who had feared traveling in Russia and Southeast Asia, said the two spots were among her favorite parts of the trip. Tyler, now a sophomore at MBHS, said he loved Japan, Russia and South Africa “just because they were different and Europe’s kind of the same.”

“The trip was like an eye-opener. It was a learning experience where you finally know how lucky you are to be here in a first world country,” Tyler said.

Along the way, they photographed the Pokemon backpack in front of famous sites the Hirns wish Ryan could have seen. Dawn wants to use the pictures to create a book about the world, with proceeds benefiting the foundation they created, Ryan’s Light, for burn victims.

When they returned to the U.S. in May 2014, the videographer also came back with about 300 hours of footage. That footage included both the highs and lows that come with seven months of close quarters, jet lag, getting lost and the other challenges of travel. Dawn originally wanted to turn it into a film to take to festivals.

As she worked with an editor on the footage, the story began to take the shape of a television series. Dawn said they just finished editing the pilot and they believe the series could be 10-13 episodes. This month, Dawn and the director and writer she is working with are attempting to sell the series to a TV network.

“It’s not meant to sensationalize our tragedy… My goal is to inspire and it comes at a good timing because people have canceled all their overseas travel. My effort is to inspire people to not only travel but also we all have bumps in the road. It’s what you do after you’ve gone over that bump,” Dawn said. “What I want to be an example of – we faced something really bad and we decided to embrace life again.”

If the series gets picked up, Dawn has a name in mind: “Our Backpack.” It represents not only the Pokemon backpack the Hirns took around the world, but also the weight her family has carried since Ryan’s death. 

“Everybody has their own backpack. Ours was our child, our sadness, our recovery,” Dawn said. “We had a lot of things in that backpack.”