A Thundering Noise from Afar

My wife Karen and I were watching the 6:00 pm news and focused our attention on a reported tornado path just north of us that appeared to be traveling eastward across the county just north of us. Our daughter was getting ready to head up that way to see her boyfriend, and my emphatic statement to her was, “girl, you best sit your butt down and chill, cuz you ain’t goin nowhere right now til’ that dag burn twister is out of this area!” Of course, she was madder than wet kitten after a bath, but I didn’t care at that point. Karen phoned up her mom’s to tell her and her daddy to stay in the basement while this whirling dervish was beating the ground underneath it. After it moved by, we hung up and they were in good shape and safe with little impact to them aside from some debris from neighbor’s homes, and a couple of blown down small trees. That storm had been rated an EF-2.

At 10:40 pm approximately, the on-air meteorologist changed view to show the storm that was spinning up a rotation signature over Pottstown. This, we knew, was probably goin to be the one that we would have to deal with. So, we watched, and it was obvious to me that the rotation on the storm was quite strong, and I mentioned that to Karen about a half minute before the station said the exact same thing. As they cycled through the storm, I noticed that the rotation pattern was heading east of us and there were debris balls associated with the rotation signature. At 10:55 pm, the debris ball and circulation signature were clearly heading straight in our path, so I yelled to Karen and Ellie, let’s git down to the cellar, and button everything up tight like. As I essentially pushed the women down the stairs, I forgot my flashlight on the kitchen counter not but 10-feet from me. I could hear that grim reaper of a thunderous roar coming towards us, but I took a chance and leapt for the flashlight and started making a beeline back to the cellar door, when the twister slammed like a 30-car freight train into the side of the house. The house was literally lifted on one side into the air creating a 30-degree angle between my reaching the doorway and getting blown back into the kitchen area. I could see nothing but lamps, desk drawers, garage shovels, rakes, even my John Deere tractor being tossed around as if it were feathers from birds flying through the calm air. I could hear the muffled screams of my Karen and daughter Ellie as they yelled for me to get to them, but the force against me too great at that point in time. Suddenly, the wind subsided a bit giving me the chance to crawl quickly to the door, but just as I got up to take a first step, the refrigerator got tossed up in the air from the horrific twisting forces, and it landed right on my right arm from the elbow down to the hand. It pinned me against the inner cabinets with such a great impact, that I could not even move one inch in any direction.

As I was secured down with the weight of the fridge, and high intensity winds of the tornado, I could feel the life within my hand and fingers move from me. It began with a numbness and tingling sensation in the fingertips that quickly traveled into my hand, my wrist, and then down the forearm. As I was in the precarious position of no movement with more than 250 pounds cinching my forearm and hand, I thought about only one thing, and that was the safety of my wife and daughter. I did everything that I could to push with my legs and jostle the fridge off me, but just as I began to feel some movement of this monstrosity, it gave way and I felt something wet smother my pinned arm and hand area. The pain was so intense and sharp that it made me sick to my stomach. Then as fast as the pain came upon me, it began to wane, and the feeling was gone. I felt nothing at all from that extremity, and knew that if help didn’t come soon, I would more than likely lose the arm to gangrene. At that point in time, the wicked twister had passed the area, winds had calmed down, the rain stopped, and as I looked up to the surroundings, I could see only the sky because the tornado had torn the roof right off the home that we had built not but 3-years prior. I could hear my wife and daughter down in the basement crying hysterically, and then at that moment, one of the neighbor friends down the road rushed into the debris laden house and saw me pinned underneath the refrigerator. He went to the other side of the fridge and must have seen my arm and hand condition because he ran to the outside of the home, and yelled for the ambulance to come this way. 

As the dust settled, and the region got cleaned up to some degree, I was getting out of the rehabilitation hospital where I had been for the last 6-weeks. My arm from the elbow down had to be amputated due to so much lost blood, and lack of flow and oxygen. I knew at the very moment while pinned underneath that fridge when my time was up for any ability to hold a ball in my dominant hand or raise a fork full of brisket to my mouth savoring every bite. Yes, my days were done with an easy life and having no troubles to a life feeling no more sensation. The warm gesturing caress of my darling Karen’s cheek using my skillful own hand was an end that came sadly to me, but I was still alive to see and experience the goodness that allowed me to weather that one day in a summer of 2014. The reality of my life had flashed before me in a matter of less than 30-minutes, but it was just enough to allow me to feel life then loss. From that time forward, I never, ever took one thing for granted and lived every single day of my life as if it was my last one here on Earth.