TRUE HEROES

Two alumni, employees of St. John’s and Freeman, recall a night they will never forget.

True heroes

Most people from southwest Missouri know what it’s like to be in a thunderstorm and under a tornado warning. Kathy Cowley, of Carl Junction, and Dr. Nathan Box, of Joplin, are two such people. However, both had never seen anything like they did the night of May 22. As medical professionals, they worked in the middle of the chaos.

Cowley, a 1995 graduate of the Missouri Southern nursing program, is the manager of St. John’s Regional Medical Center’s maternity unit and was driving home when the storm rolled in. Her family took cover in their basement. Afterward, Cowley received a message on her cell phone from her shift manager, Nancy Miller, who was at the obstetrics wing on the eighth floor of St. John’s.

She was shouting, “Kathy, oh my God, oh my God, we’ve been hit; the tornado hit us. We’re trying to get all the moms and babies safe. We’ve got to get out.”

“Usually, I’m pretty cool, calm and collected, but it just brought me to my knees and tears,” said Cowley.

She and her husband jumped into their van and drove toward the hospital.

That same day, Box, a 2001 Southern honors biology graduate and an ear nose and throat and facial trauma specialist for Freeman Health System, was with his 5-year-old son at home on West 26th Street near Schifferdecker Avenue. They spent the afternoon jumping on a trampoline before the clouds rolled in. The Boxes went inside when the sirens went off. They took cover in the bathtub and waited as the storm passed through the backyard, taking the trampoline with it.

Box called his wife, who was in Kansas at the time, to tell her they were OK and for her to come home.

Box ran toward the hospital, where a police officer offered to take Box and an emergency room physician to Memorial Hall, where the main triage center was being set up.

Meanwhile, Cowley had worked her way to 26th Street, near St. Paul’s United Methodist Church, along with several other St. John’s employees, many of whom had lost everything themselves. Police stopped the group from proceeding east toward the hospital at Maiden Lane, so they started a small triage at St. Paul’s.

“It was so emotional. I guess I felt like a Marine or something,” Cowley said. “You don’t leave anyone behind, and I just needed to know that my staff was OK, because all I had was that first phone call. I was just so frustrated I couldn’t get there that night. Oh my goodness, I never cried so much in one night in my life.”

She later was told everyone had been evacuated from the hospital, and found out later that her staff on duty had done an impeccable job moving all of the patients to safety.

“It was an interesting ride for them, but they did it. They did amazing. I am just so proud of them and so proud that everyone was safe,” Cowley said.

At the Memorial Hall triage, Box was limited in what he could do. He sutured wounds, sent one boy with multiple facial fractures for help at an out-of-town hospital, kept patients warm, sat with patients, held IV poles, and pronounced some deaths.

“That night, we were just in shock of the whole thing, and that’s what was so bad. Even being a physician, you only can do what you can do, and we really didn’t have the resources,” said Box. “What the great thing was, people actually waited. If someone was worse off than another person, they would let the other person go ahead.”

Box worked through the night, and reported to Freeman the next day.

He also took some time to borrow a dump truck and help his neighbors haul loads of brush and debris.

Box and his staff are staying extremely busy keeping up with new demands after St. John’s was replaced with a temporary

field hospital. Freeman West is in the process of opening more floors to help with the increased patient volume. Box said other aspects are improving, too. “There for the next few weeks, it was hard to sleep at night. You hear those screams, and I definitely had anxiety. Now, my son is definitely afraid of storms, but it’s gotten much better,” he said. Cowley has some obstetrics staff at the temporary hospital just in case they are “What the great thing was, people needed. In spring actually waited. If someone was worse 2012, the field off than another person, they would let hospital will be replaced by a the other person go ahead.” 120-bed component hospital being built and shipped in from California, which will have beds and a nursery dedicated to obstetrics. “We’re all missing our patients very badly,” Cowley said. “We want to deliver, and we’ve had patients call us and say they are so sad they won’t get to deliver with us, but we’ll be back better and bigger.” Cowley and other employees are working on designs with architects for the new hospital, to be built near South Main Street and Interstate 44 in Joplin, set for completion in 2014. “I was there when we built the floor that was on the eighth floor in 2001. I was also brought in in 1995 with the original eight people that got the floor opened the first time, so we’re just doing it again,” said Cowley. — Kisa Clark, ’11 In photo on facing page, Kathy Cowley, ’95, and Dr. Nathan Box, ’01, stand outside of Memorial Hall, where a triage station was set up the night of May 22. — Photo by Willie Brown, ’13