Dr. Ken Stewart Recalls 2011 Joplin Triage That Saved Lives on Tornado's 15th Anniversary
Updated
Updated · KCTV 5 · May 22
Dr. Ken Stewart Recalls 2011 Joplin Triage That Saved Lives on Tornado's 15th Anniversary
3 articles · Updated · KCTV 5 · May 22
Fifteen years after Joplin’s 2011 EF-5 tornado, Dr. Ken Stewart said he turned Wildwood Baptist Church into a makeshift triage center after finding St. John’s Hospital unreachable.
With no equipment at first, Stewart and two paramedics stabilized victims in the church parking lot, including an unconscious woman impaled by a 2-by-4 who was airlifted to Springfield and survived surgery.
For several hours, Stewart treated patients with lacerations, penetrating wounds and broken bones, joined by an ICU nurse from Kansas City and aided by supplies brought in from Arkansas, Kansas and elsewhere.
Stewart said the destruction around St. John’s felt like “the surface of the moon,” but he also remembered an unusually calm response and a community determined to rebuild stronger.
Now a Kansas City University professor in Joplin, Stewart used the anniversary to urge first-aid training and taking tornado warnings seriously.
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