My Tornado Story

The Grand Opening of our hospital will be in March and our Hospital Administrator is putting together a booklet and asked us to write a few words about the night of the tornado. Here's a brief synopsis of my night... I worked the evening of the tornado. I walked up and down the basement hallway about 500 times I think. People were coming and going all night looking for loved ones. Alot of towns people came and went, looking for loved ones. Some people brought their dogs for shelter, some brought their children, and some brought their spouses. My family came and brought my 87 year old mother. One young lady came and was worried about her mother and almost hysterical-- I kind of had to "get in her face" and tell her to calm down because we had all of our patients (including the BHU patients) and several other people from the community there and I didn't want to get them upset and scared. I hope I wasn't too stern with her and I think it was for her own good and ours that I was firm with her. She calmed down anyway. A man came and brought his big wet dog and he didn't have a leash for him and the man was crying saying he hurt and that got the young lady going again and I was really worried they were going to get everybody upset but eventually they both calmed down. Someone made a leash out of an oxygen tube for the dog. The man wanted to stay in the bathroom and keep the dog with him there but I told him other people would need the bathroom and I helped him move the dog to another room where the physical therapy department had their whirlpool. Later I found out that other people had their dogs in that room and they weren't happy about having the big black dog brought there! Someone's dog pooped in the hallway-- the hot, crowded, trafficked hallway! Then a couple of the BHU patients decided they were getting out of there! Their nurses did well with them but somehow amidst all the congestion a man and a lady both tried to leave-- so I elicited the help of one of the men who had came for shelter and he assisted getting them back to the BHU nurse. She went upstairs and got mattresses off the beds for them to lie on which was a really great idea because people were getting tired of sitting in hard chairs and it was way past their bedtime! I assisted my mother to the physical therapy room and she laid down on one of their "tables" to rest. My sister was in a room next door taking care of a lady that had a head injury. My husband had carried a young man downstairs who had an injured back. Several people who had came for shelter lined the halls and all they could do was wait to be rescued. The rescuers came and took them all first in ambulances, I believe, to surrounding hospitals. I told the rescuers we were all OK and they said they would come back later for us. Dr. Kibar came to the hospital when he got to town that night (it's my understanding he was out of town) and he went to each of our hospital patients and asked them if they were OK and if there was anything they needed. Dr. Maalouf worked at the triage areas at Dillon's parking lot. Chris Gardiner was our "on call" Provider for the night and he had came to hospital and went to work immediately even though his house had just been blown away by the tornado and he and his family had climbed out of the debris. And, it is my understanding that Nancy Kisner and Jonell Sirois worked all night at the triage area also. All of our hospital patients were transferred by ambulances to other hospitals. Chris wanted a nurse to go with all the patients and we (Chris and I) thought they were all going to one place but it turned out they took everyone to different places and my patient, my mother and I ended up in Coldwater. At 4am I realized I was stuck in Coldwater with no phone, no money, no pills for my elderly mother and no bed for my mother (since she wasn't a patient they didn't have a bed for her because they needed to save the beds for the sick and injured). I called my son's mother-in-law and awakened her to get his phone number and fortunately he was in Pratt (headed back to Wichita after assisting around town where he could) and answered his phone and then I lost it and cried, "Joe, I'm in Coldwater with Mom and I don't know what to do!" to which he replied "I'll be right there!" and he rescued us! Joe was my Hero that night!