Storm story: Hospital spared, grateful doctors and nurses treated wounded

SUFFOLK

The morning after the tornado, the people who work at Sentara Obici Hospital were grateful both for what didn’t happen and what did.

Grateful that the hospital was largely spared so that they could treat those who weren’t.

Grateful that there were no deaths and that most of the injuries were minor and most of the 70 people they treated in about six hours Monday night were able to walk out of the hospital.

And grateful that they were able to see that disasters don’t just cause destruction.

“You really just always are reminded about the goodness of people when you are in the middle of something like this,” said Phyllis Stoneburner, a nurse and vice president of patient care services at Obici Hospital.

Just before the tornado struck, about 4:15 or so, Stoneburner was in her office working on a presentation.

The outside wall of Stoneburner’s office at the hospital is mostly windows. On a sunny day, it makes for a very bright place. On Monday, what made Stoneburner look up and out the window was the heavy rain. And just behind that, bearing down on the hospital, she saw the tornado.

She called the hospital’s emergency number and sounded the alarm. Told people to get themselves and the patients away from any windows.

"You don’t panic, because you don’t have time.”

Around the same time, Marianne Walston got a call that there was a tornado outside Room 208. By the time she got there the tornado was headed toward the intensive care unit.

Deep in the ER, where there were no windows to see, the tornado was “a whole different monster,” said nurse Sunshine Barrett, “All we could feel is the pressure in our ears.”

Letting the family dog in from outside, Kerry Greene saw the funnel cloud she had been taught to fear growing up in Texas. “It’s kind of mesmerizing,” she said. She quickly headed for a closet in the house, worried about Dylan at the nearby daycare. Who knew what path that tornado would take?

At about that time, “everybody was starting to gather up,” said 7-year-old Dylan. They went into the hall and the teachers shielded the kids with their bodies. The tornado sounded like a train “ going wooo” to Dylan. Was he scared?

“No,” he said quickly. “Some girls were.”

Then, Dylan added that he was scared “a little bit,” and held his thumb and index finger a couple of milimeters apart.

After it was over, they went into the classroom to read a book. “The moms were calling to see if we were okay” and soon his dad would come pick him up and take him home too.

Kerry Greene, knowing Dylan was safe, headed back to work in the ER, where within minutes of the tornado passing, people started showing up at the hospital. Covered in dust, bruises and cuts, in shock, but, amazingly, alive.

Only three of the roughly 70 people who passed through the emergency room doors had to be admitted to the hospital. One of them was an Obici employee who was caught in the storm heading home from work. About another 10 or so Obici employees lost their homes and Sentara is in the process of figuring out how to help them, Stoneburner said.

The ER was filled not just with patients but with doctors and nurses who came to work without being asked. Plastic surgeons did basic stitches. Orthopedic surgeons set broken bones. Some worked knowing their own homes had been destroyed.

“They were here, just working away, knowing they had nothing to go home to,” said Walston, a nurse who is director of critical and emergency services at Obici.

But it wasn’t just the staff who were inspiring.

There was the family with a little girl and a baby, who had a shop in the demolished strip mall across the street, who managed to somehow walk out of the wreckage.

The “little eight-year-old girl was so shaken up,” Walston said.

“She was so stoic though,” Barrett added.

“It’s a real joy to be a part of a community that just pulled together,” Barrett said. “I watched people say, 'This person is hurt worse than I am. Can you take them first?’ I heard that more than once.”

Hospitals from all over offered help. A supply truck made its way to Obici just after 10 to replenish supplies. By then, the ER was actually quieter than on a normal busy Monday night. So many health professionals had volunteered to help that the patients were treated very quickly and released.

So, the day after the tornado the people at Obici worried about what their neighbors who would go home to find so much destruction. And they worried about how, in their haste to recover their belongings along jagged wreckage they might get hurt all over again and need to be stitched up.

But the day after the tornado also happened to be sunny. And Dylan didn’t have to go to school, something he didn’t seem to mind at all. He had this offer as a tip for kids – or anyone – for that matter who doesn’t know what to do in a tornado...and maybe most importantly, after.

“Tell them to duck down and don’t panic,” said Dylan. “ Because their moms are going to be okay and so are their dads. Don’t cry. And just have fun and start the day off again nice.”

Nancy Young, (757) 446-2947, nancy.young@pilotonline.com